Take a Way

At school Andy's English teacher had everyone enter into a contest. The subject was "How Music Defied the Holocaust."
We did research on the subject and found out that the Nazi forbid the Jews to play German Composers. The Nazis even sometimes restricted Jews to play or compose music. But the Jews found a way to write and find peace in music in such a horrible time in history. Some of the pieces Jews wrote inspired the music industry.
Anyway Andy entered a poem and ended up wining an award, 3rd place.
I'm so proud of him and all his hard work in school.

Take a Way
You may take me in the middle of the night.
You can try to kill my heritage.
You want to exterminate my existence
Try all you can to force my mind to break
But I will keep a tune on my lips


You may strip me of my clothes
You can try to place rules and laws to limit me
You want to control who I am
Try all you can to take my identity
But no matter your efforts I will hum those great composers


You may take or ration my food
You can mangle me with your bare hands.
You want to defile my belief
Try all you can to drown my cries to my maker
But I will always carry the songs of my tradition


The more you try to strain me the more I will resist.
The harder you try to take away from me the harder I will grip
You can change my surrounding but I will not change my passion
For the one thing you want most I can only give
and I will not award your hostility
I will leave a legacy instead that will someday imprint into the future
providing a record against your hate and chanting
the truthfulness of your nature.