Land of the Dead by Joan Dobbie What once was a homeland is now just a grey heap of stone, rubble and blood the stench of dead flesh hangs in the air making even the smallest life giving breath hard to bear … Dead men and dead women lie under the rubble Dead children … in pieces their small twisted bodies crushed under stone …dead animals too… feathers and fur mix in with the dead human flesh Dead Mothers Dead Aunties Dead Uncles Dead Fathers Dead Brothers: These men who once kneeled before ALLAH or bowed under Y-W-E-H or whispered a Christian prayer who sometimes played chess in the cool midnight streets with their neighbors are lost in a rubble of stone, glass, and dead flesh As for the ones left alive: They struggle through night & day horror, bent under monstrous boulders of grief their blood burns with hatred As for the dead: Copyright 2023 by Joan Dobbie
Joan Dobbie is the daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors who made it into Switzerland after Kristalnacht as literal “wetbacks.” She and one older sister, Ellie, were born in Switzerland, but without citizenship. Eventually her family made it to America to a small town in Northern New York, where her father was the only doctor for 40 years, and where her two younger siblings were born. Joan’s parents were good people who taught against hatred of any sort. To this day, although he died in 1989, townsfolk remember the many lives her father saved, as well as her mother’s dynamic and loving community spirit. Joan is grateful that her parents do not have to see what is happening in the middle east today. Their hearts would be broken.
