A Poet's View
1
Explosions settle
dust on the table,
the last of the bread
in orbit, saucers
overflowing with
black tea, stains spreading
from here to there and
a mother, crying
between screams. Her
child, motionless.
Beit Lahia was warned.
2
The children have no
room to run, no pitas
to calm their asking
for juice. No biscuits.
No mangoes to toss
like footballs. Olive
trees: splintered. Water
erupting old pipes.
Books - by Gibran and
Darwish and Shihab
Nye - floating past as
another shock wave
works its way through the
electrical grid.
Thirteen floors tumble
to garden level.
Drones yet whirred like flies.
3
Numbers. Begin with
one thousand four hundred
news-worthy names shared
world-wide. Not Beit Lahia's.
There, leaflets, like birds,
still fall from the sky,
where the cries of dogs
become lullabies;
pots and pans, rockets.
4
Stones or bombs:
what's the difference?
5
All going south.
____________________________________
This poem was inspired by poet Mosab Abu Toha’s essay in The
New Yorker, “The View from My Window in Gaza,” October 20, 2023. Online: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/the-view-from-my-window-in-gaza
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