the world creates you (found poem, from an interview with Gabor Mate)

just before they got to [Budapest]
where my mother and I lived
under Nazi occupation

(this, I tell you
has informed so much of my work)

the pediatrician said
“all of my Jewish babies
are crying”

(the child is very open
if the mother is suffering
the baby is suffering)

the parents' pain
is felt and passed down

the iniquity of the fathers
visited upon the sons

with our thoughts
we make the world

but what I want to add –
before you create the world
the world creates you