More than Enough

Last night's BBC News coverage of the 70th anniversary commemoration at Auschwitz was moving, despite rather than because of the best efforts of anchorman Huw 'Solid mahogany' Edwards and Fergal 'There will be tears' Keane. The images, and the words of the survivors and their families, were sufficient.
 As the Holocaust passes from living memory - and it won't be long now - so memory fades into Remembrance, with its tendency to ritualised sentimentality, easy attitudinising and airy platitudes. In the face of such horrors as the Shoah, plain words are surely best. Plain words precisely placed and weighted, as in this poem by Geoffrey Hill...

September Song

born 19.6.32—deported 24.9.42

Undesirable you may have been, untouchable   

you were not. Not forgotten   

or passed over at the proper time.

As estimated, you died. Things marched,   

sufficient, to that end.

Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented   

terror, so many routine cries.

(I have made

an elegy for myself it   

is true)

September fattens on vines. Roses   

flake from the wall. The smoke   

of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

This is plenty. This is more than enough.