"Merely to say, to see and say, things
as they are,” grows loud ... and louder in a corner of my mind as moonlight slants through the study window.
[decades-long
inhuman occupation compressed]
to one-day attacks
reponding with the red glow
of missiles in Gaza's night sky
this endless loop:
October 7, October 7 ...
[and yet
the decades BEFORE
and the day AFTER] bloodshedding
each bombed-out house:
an album with no photos
but with people
living, wounded and dead
pressed between its pages
anything new
under Gaza's smeared sun?
smoky rubble
beyond smoky rubble, and yet
again smoky rubble
I etch each pain with a borrowed tongue, then every word becomes a betrayal; but all the silence will turn into a heart wound. Turning my gaze from writing, then looking out the window at the moon, its fullness, I mutter, "what is the use of useless poetry when it cannot stop the killing?"
