Only

A break from my studying,
my eyes move lightwards
to a soft and distant glow,
far by foot, farther by feet.

And squinting at this
feeble emulation of the sun,
I question why it is so high
that its light cannot touch our heads.

I think about all the lives
that anonymously pass under
its attempted shine at night,
and how lights like this were around.

They were around around the grounds
of my studies, a place which I am
thankful I am only studying.
"Only studying" I say and heave;

"Only studying" but not
"only a place" because
Auschwitz should never be
preceded by "only."

And the higher the light reaches,
the less we acknowledge the lives
underneath, the distant and anonymous,
the darkandpast hoarding stacking corpses.