Spotted this on the superb Teifidancer blog
A Poem for Gaza
I never knew death
until I saw the bombing
of a refugee camp
craters
filled with
dismembered legs
and splattered torsos
but no sign of a face
the only impression
a fading scream
I never understood pain
until a seven-year-old girl
clutched my hand
stared up at me
with soft brown eyes
waiting for answers
in her other hand
she held a key
to her grandmother's house
but I couldn't unlock the cell
that caged her older brothers
they said
we slingshot dreams
so the other side
will feel our father's presence!
a craftsman
built homes in areas
where no one was building
when he fell
silence
a .50 caliber bullet
tore through his neck
shredding his vocal cords
too close to the wall
his hammer
must have been a weapon
he must have been a weapon
encroaching on settlement hills
and demographies
so his daughter
studies mathematics
seven explosions
times
eight bodies
equals
four congressional resolutions
seven Apache helicopters
times
eight Palestinian villages
equals
silence and a second Nakba
our birthrate
minus their birthrate
equals
one sea and 400 villages re-erected
one state minus
their birthrate
equals
0ne sea and 400 villages re-erected
one state
plus
two peoples
...and she can't stop crying
never knew revolution
or the proper equation
tears at the paper
with her fingertips
searching for answers
but only has teachers
look up to the sky
to see Stars of David
demolishing squalor
with Hellfire missiles
she thinks back
words and memories
of his last hug
before he turned and fell
now she pumps
dirty water from wells
while settlements
divide and conquer
and her father's killer
sits beacchfront
with European vernacular
this is our land! she said
she's seven years old
this is our land!
she doesn't need history books
or a scoolroom teacher
she has these walls
this sky
her refugee camp
she doesn't know the proper equation
but she sees my dry pens
no longer waiting for my answers
just holding her grandmother's key
for ink
A Poem for Gaza
I never knew death
until I saw the bombing
of a refugee camp
craters
filled with
dismembered legs
and splattered torsos
but no sign of a face
the only impression
a fading scream
I never understood pain
until a seven-year-old girl
clutched my hand
stared up at me
with soft brown eyes
waiting for answers
in her other hand
she held a key
to her grandmother's house
but I couldn't unlock the cell
that caged her older brothers
they said
we slingshot dreams
so the other side
will feel our father's presence!
a craftsman
built homes in areas
where no one was building
when he fell
silence
a .50 caliber bullet
tore through his neck
shredding his vocal cords
too close to the wall
his hammer
must have been a weapon
he must have been a weapon
encroaching on settlement hills
and demographies
so his daughter
studies mathematics
seven explosions
times
eight bodies
equals
four congressional resolutions
seven Apache helicopters
times
eight Palestinian villages
equals
silence and a second Nakba
our birthrate
minus their birthrate
equals
one sea and 400 villages re-erected
one state minus
their birthrate
equals
0ne sea and 400 villages re-erected
one state
plus
two peoples
...and she can't stop crying
never knew revolution
or the proper equation
tears at the paper
with her fingertips
searching for answers
but only has teachers
look up to the sky
to see Stars of David
demolishing squalor
with Hellfire missiles
she thinks back
words and memories
of his last hug
before he turned and fell
now she pumps
dirty water from wells
while settlements
divide and conquer
and her father's killer
sits beacchfront
with European vernacular
this is our land! she said
she's seven years old
this is our land!
she doesn't need history books
or a scoolroom teacher
she has these walls
this sky
her refugee camp
she doesn't know the proper equation
but she sees my dry pens
no longer waiting for my answers
just holding her grandmother's key
for ink
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