Let the memorial hill remember -- Yehuda Amichai

Guest poem submitted by a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous:

(Poem #1548) Let the memorial hill remember Let the memorial hill remember instead of me, that's what it's here for. Let the par in-memory-of remember, let the street that's-named-for remember, let the well-known building remember, let the synagogue that's named after God remember let the rolling Torah scroll remember, let the prayer for the memory of the dead remember. Let the flags remember those multicolored shrouds of history: the bodies they wrapped have long since turned to dust. Let the dust remember. Let the dung remember at the gate. Let the afterbirth remember. Let the beasts of the field and birds of the heavens eat and remember. Let all of them remember so that I can rest. -- Yehuda Amichai

        from "Songs of Zion the Beautiful"

I like this poem since it exposes our natural wish to get released from
agonizing memories and thoughts by forgetting.  Here Amichai speaks about
sacred memories, of people (friends?) that died in war, for defending the
living, among them Amichai. Another interesting twist of this poem, is that
it describes monuments built for the fallen as a tool for remembering things
for us, so that we can forget. Something along the lines of the electric
monk of Douglas Adams (which believes in things that we don't have time to
believe in).