Tuesday, May 30 2023
On a cool August day
With a grey cloudless sky
Not a person stands outside
Rabbi Grover reminisces
A treasure of a street in Toronto
Where mosques churches and temples
Stand side by side
In harmony
Surrounding Beth Tikvah is an old brick wall
With Red Writing.
A message of hate carelessly scribbled
A stencilled swastika sketched in red and black
It smells like wet paint.
Its colours seep into the warm rusty brick
So it could be a mirage that fades into the distance
Except to the careful eye of a survivor
Caught in a daze
A man who can never forget
A wind that demanded our naked bodies
With its agonizingly cold shiver
That violated the sacred souls that stood
Behind the barbed wire
On that cool summer day
A wind began ruffling through
The flags, beginning to rise
A blue star of David
And a red maple leaf
Swaying noisily beside
The warm and rustic wall