Perhaps like you, I’ve been preoccupied this week with the terrible events in Israel-Gaza. Please accept this new poem as a gesture of shared grief and, yes, despite everything, shared hope. Always hope. Like a tendril shooting up out of rock.
***
AGAIN
Phyllis Cole-Dai
On the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, October 2023
They are launching rockets again
They are blowing up homes again
They are taking hostages again
They are committing atrocities again
They are cutting off food, water, and power again
They are filling the world’s screens again
with mounds of rubble and twisted metal
They are running for their lives again
They are hunkering down in basements and bunkers again
They are sheltering where they are not safe again
on both sides of the border wall
They are searching for the missing again
They are collecting hair from combs again
They are wrapping the dead and digging graves again
They are wailing and shaking fists at the heavens again
from cemeteries cratered by bombs
May they soon be exhausted by their fighting again
May they collapse like children in sleep again
May they begin to dream again
of breaking bread with friends again
of dancing and singing songs again
of laughing from the belly again
of making love and babies again
of speaking a hallowed tongue again
that has no words for
occupy terrorize enemy war
May they be safe in their deep, hungry sleep again
May they have what they need to wake again
red-faced and crying for breath
reaching blindly for love
as if they have just been born
