The silent sacrifice, where shadows twisted and leered,
A gate once opened wide, was now rusted with fear.
Each thought, a fading echo lost in hollow cries,
Smothered beneath the weight of ghostly, vacant eyes.
Where souls once burned with fire, bold and bright,
Now hollow figures drifted, swallowed by the night.
The spirit was torn, like whispers in the wind,
The mind was erased, and darkness slowly grinned.
The path of silence was tread with heads bowed low,
Beneath a sky where nameless terrors grew.
Chained by ignorance, shuffling, cold and blind,
Praising the curse that poisoned every mind.
The brave were buried in the dust of old,
Their cries were drowned out by voices shrill and cold.
Hatred, now a king, wore shadows like a crown,
Its reign of terror pulled all down.
The silent sacrifice, where minds were cast aside,
By hands unseen, dragged to the depths to hide.
Shunning the light that once pierced through the veil,
Wandering lost in nightmares, pale and frail.
No longer did the flame of thought remain,
For in its place, a spectre gripped the chain.
Kneeling before the lies that clawed the sky,
Watching as reason’s flicker slowly died.
In lands where shadows choked the very air,
What use was thought? The soul lay stripped and bare.
The heart was but a phantom, cold and still,
As darkness whispered, bending to its will.
Ignorance reigned, hatred wove its web,
Those who were thought were dragged among the dead.
Since, in the end, the self had faded away,
As shadows rose to claim their endless prey.
Thus died the self, the silent sacrifice,
In ignorance, the final price was paid.
Hatred ruled where light no longer dared to tread,
And the living soul was numbered with the dead.
Esther Elizabeth Racah
