How do we put words to horror unfolding? To anguished cries and shattered hospitals. Children covered in toxic dust and blood, while politicians spew poisonous rhetoric. To watching humanity’s failure broadcast in real-time.
And yet we try. To bridge the distance, to connect with people who are suffering in ways we can’t even begin to imagine. Who are stronger and more resilient than any human should ever have to be. To bear witness. While desperately hoping that we will wake one morning to find it was all a dystopian dream.
I wrote this poem at the end of last year, when Christmas had lost its shine. It arrived without warning, somewhere between the decorations being dug out of the attic and the tree finally going up. I didn’t plan to write about Palestine. And also, I couldn’t not.
Two months on, thousands more innocent people killed, injured and displaced. And still no ceasefire.
The news is breaking
me open. As I sift
through the debris
of my child’s past loves
another mother grasps
at stone, aching
for the squeeze of
togetherness, the hand
that always finds
its way to hers.
Those clouds look
like marshmallows,
my daughter wisps,
as crunchy spiders
rattle in the corners
of dust-filled boxes.
She’s never seen
a sunset that doesn’t look
edible. Inconceivably
elsewhere, a lost kite floats
above a ruined city
trailing an ache
that can’t be filled.
“How do we put words to horror unfolding?” How, indeed. Thank you for trying.
Oh, Christina. I am overwhelmed by this - the poem and your words that accompany it. Thank you for your sharing and the bravery too that it takes to do so.