CRUISE FARE 2: HOLOCAUST IN MY MIND

YOBO OF SARNIA

               
“In ascending steep climbs, the Himalayan Sherpas hold each other on the shoulder in a single file; you know, it somehow energizes them.” – Yobo, while climbing the Georgetown Fort in Grenada


“Sich falsche Hoffnungen machen,”
he muttered absently,
looking for an excuse to be on top
of a hill housing a dungeon.

Remnants of a lookout point,
the Fort stands now for an illusion:
safe from the marauders,
safe from the ogres of conquest,
here remains a craven rock
of futile defence from the claws
of Empires that came to save settlers
from voodoo and disease
in the name of God and country,
hope for the hoffnungsvoll,
a new world where the old
is a detritus of violence and greed.

“I am a castaway child
of the Holocaust, and I remember:
no dungeons or chambers
shall cut us down wherever we go;
our best revenge is to thrive
at any time in any clime in any place
where we find ourselves
derided, denied, and defeated;
it is only the hoffnunglos
who must inherit the wind;
my people will always build
the lighthouse on the knoll;
like the Sherpas on the Everest,
we hold each other‘s back
ascending, we lend each other
strength until the very end.”

Muttering, Yobo of Sarnia, man of means,
absently looked down the cliff and claimed:
“Ich auch eigen der Welt unter.
No one will take it away from me. Ever.
Pardon my Deutsch, Monsieur,
but habits die hard and tongues get twisted."

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

Photo by Bobby Wong Jr.