Kalman Aron (1926-2018) Poem by Doug Lane

Father murdered,
mother murdered,
starving in death camps
for 4 years,


drawing Nazi guards,
paid with bread crusts,
drawing
as though
his life
depended
on it.


Looking into the faces
of the doomed,
seeing something there
most of us
never will.


Somehow surviving
somehow not devoured
by memories
somehow still drawing and painting


somehow ending up
in Beverly Hills
portraying celebrities,
somehow becoming
a celebrity
himself.


Still seeing, still painting,
still expressing
75 years after
the Nazis
tried to kill him,
and somehow let
him
through their net.


If he can survive that,
transcend that,
his life asks,
what can we survive,
surmount,
express?