Perspectives On An American Dream

To John Roth, Holocaust Scholar

He recognizes the melancholy
settled in his mind, his life.
The cost of bearing witness to
horror-filled lapses of humanity.
A life’s pursuit,
an effort to thwart denial, eliminate
the next generation of bystanders.
Does he know, though,
what we see, his students?
His metamorphosis is not unlike
that of an actor preparing for stage.
An endless play wears him:
silvering hair shorn tight
thin frame bending inward--
an attempt to blunt despair,
before it sets in our marrow,
before we accept that holocaust to us
is a defective genetic code.
Professor, museum scholar, author,
philosopher, husband, father, mentor,
student of genocide,
his voice, melodic incantations,
invoke hope beyond the melancholy,
beyond the despair.