History of Sorts

Steel serpents carved through dawn’s first light,
A journey veiled in darkest night,
Crammed boxcars held the silent screams,
Of shattered lives and broken dreams.

On iron trails, their hopes erased,
Through countrysides, the engines raced,
Families torn from all they knew,
A past that dwindled from their view.

No windows showed the path ahead,
The air was thick with fear and dread,
The rails, relentless, forged their way,
To places where no light could stay.

Whispers, prayers, and muted cries,
In crowded dark, where daylight dies,
The rattle of the tracks, a dirge,
A sorrowed sea, an endless surge.

Inside those cars, the young, the old,
Their stories left, untold, yet bold,
In every heart, a silent plea,
For mercy, for some liberty.

The stench of sweat, of tears, of pain,
As hope dissolved in sorrow’s rain,
Each jolt and turn, a twist of fate,
A journey sealed by barbed gate.

And yet, within that suffocating space,
A flicker lived in each worn face,
A stubborn will, a faint, warm spark,
That glowed within the endless dark.

For even in those final miles,
In whispered words and fleeting smiles,
A spirit clung, a silent cry,
A question, burning, “Why, oh why?”

The wheels that ground the stones of hate,
Now echo with the heavy weight,
Of lives unburdened, spirits free,
Remembered for eternity.

So as we ponder these steel trails,
We honor every soul that sails,
Through history’s harsh, relentless tide,
Their memory, our hearts’ abide.