Someone said that with each breath
you take you are inhaling atoms
that Einstein once inhaled, and
if that is true you are also inhaling
atoms that Stalin and Hitler inhaled.
But extend that logic, when you
walk the old cities of Europe,
and particularly those near where
the Nazis built their camps, pause
for a long moment and ask yourself
on whose ashes you might be treading.
There is nothing you can do to change this
but we all also have much to atone for
and there is no better time to start the now.