Julan62

Not as stone remembers rain
but as skin remembers fire,
the way a name once spoken can still bruise the air
History is not a museum with clean glass,
it breathes, it waits,
it hums in the wires above our streets
and in the silence after a door shuts too hard
Hands have built hospitals and cages,
the same hands,
fingers that can cradle a child
or sign a list that turns people into numbers
Do not look away,
forgetting is a luxury paid for by the broken
memory is the candle we keep lit
even when the room wants darkness
We remember the trains that did not ask questions,
the ships that mistook profit for prayer,
the borders drawn like scars
across living, speaking hearts
This is not about guilt alone,
it is about vigilance,
about love standing guard through the night
with tired eyes and an unyielding spine
Because the past is patient,
it will repeat itself softly at first,
a joke, a shrug, a rule,
until cruelty feels normal and silence feels safe
So we remember, loudly and tenderly,
we say the names, we tell the stories,
we teach our children that dignity is not divisible
and humanity is not a trend
Memory is an act of hope,
a refusal to let tomorrow be built
with the same old knives
We remember,
so that kindness stays awake
and the world, bruised but breathing,
gets another chance to choose better
JH