an empty bookcase was framed against the wall
lonely and forlorn, lacking in substance
because no books remained
remember and bear witness
of books
dressed in colorful jackets
holding dreams inked in a multitude of
languages, pictures, places, cultures, ideas
GONE
pulled from the shores of shelves by
unidentified, masked shouts of force and authority
handcuffed and tossed into the bonfire of cars
transporting pages to internment camps
burning to ashes identities and human rights
becoming
those silenced hidden voices from the
eyes of sophisticated civilizations
who are complicit in
emptying the bookcases of our souls
in generations to come will we as a nation claim
innocence
as we went about our daily routines of
genocide
even as the empty bookshelves will
testify
to our illiteracy
bookcases need not to remain empty
stories cannot be erased from memory
to value literature humanity
is to find a nation in ourselves