AND THE STARS
One of the few survivors of the attack
on a Gaza City refuge – that had once
been a school – is a five-year-old girl,
who walks alone through the burning building.
Her name is Waad. Most of her family
have perished, including her mother.
Traumatised she speaks softly: ‘I love Mama
as big as the sky and the earth – and the stars.’
She is surrounded by concrete rubble,
domestic detritus, and the unfound dead.
An hour or so’s drive away, a horde of
well-fed men is striding through the narrow streets
of old Jerusalem chanting ‘Death
to the Arabs!’ Though the Arabic
and Hebrew for ‘death’ and ‘love’ have the same
Semitic roots, the child and the chanting mob
seem galaxies apart.
Ian Craine
June 30, 2025A fine quintet of poems, David. Shorter than most but telling reminders of history’s processes and consequences, of men thoughtless and devious, of tribes as victim and aggressor. And of choices made. Be selfish. Or, be just.