A poem I wrote during the Israel Lebanon war in 2006
OURS
After shells shatter his home
and bury two people
a 78 year old man
walks for two hours,
on his feet, only slippers
until he reaches safety.
A father and daughter are
killed when they leave their shelter durng
a break in the shelling,.
The bodies of a number
of children are dug from the
ruins of the building
in which they had been
taking shelter.
A woman
is bured for hours
in the rubble
of her home.
“I was choking”,
she later says,
“there was dirt
and mud
In
my throat
I couldn’t
breathe
I
couldn’t
move.”
After a comparatively
quiet morning
the rockets
strike cities and towns
hitting the home
of a fifteen year old
girl
who dies.
A 76 year old
man dies
of a heart attack
while trying to run
to shelter.
Rockets and mortars
kill two children
aged 3 and 7
who were
playing
outside
their home.
A young mother of two
is killed while
she sits in her kitchen
and a rocket
penetrates
her house.
Eighteen people
including children
are burnt alive
when a helicopter
gunship
hits a convoy
of families
who are fleeing.
Are you wondering
which
side,
religion,
identity,
religion,
country
the people
I mentioned
belong to
does it bother you
that I did not
identify them
did not allow you
to take a stance
for or against,
did not allow you
to put each
erased, sacred
human life
in a box
with a label
“Theirs”, “Ours:”
so you could decide
either to care….
or …NOT care?
It does
not matter.
they are ours
they are ours
they are ALL ours!
THEY ARE ALL OURS!
They are ALL our children,
Save them please