Everyone's Child
A child like a rag doll blown
from a car blown
from a road leaving
a small village
in Southern Lebanon —
Leaflets dropped by Israeli
planes told villagers to evacuate.
When they did
the planes came back
and blew their convoy off the road
leaving a child like a rag doll
nameless, unknown,
because everyone who knew
her is also dead, or gone.
Do you think this is too horrible
to see?
Or that the horror
is in the doing.
©Susan Bright, 2006
Note: Isn't Ethnic Cleansing what we call forced migrations of populations?
Robert Fisk writes that this photograph by Nasser Nasser (shown widely in the Middle East, not at all here) is a symbol of this war. You can read his columns from Beruit in The Independent. Sign in to receive a month free portfolio subscription.
* (About the photo) The body of child is seen at the site of an attack that struck the vehicles of villagers evacuating out of their village, on the main road near the southern border village of Ter Harfa, Lebanon Saturday July 15, 2006. At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed in what appeared to be an Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles evacuating a village near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon, a witness said. The convoy was leaving the village of Marwaheen, which abuts the border, when it was attacked. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Listen to, or read Amy Goodman's
interview with Fisk Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 on
Democracy Now.
Susan Bright is the author of nineteen books of poetry. She is the editor of Plain View Press which since 1975 has published one-hundred-and-fifty books. Her work as a poet, publisher, activist and educator has taken her all over the United States and abroad. Her most recent book, The Layers of Our Seeing, is a collection of poetry, photographs and essays about peace done in collaboration with photographer Alan Pogue and Middle Eastern journalist, Muna Hamzeh.
posted by SB @ 10:10 PM
2 Comments:
Susan- The picture of the child was enough. The picture needed no poem. The poem was the picture. Really, the poem was the child lying there. What a nightmare this world has become. Just hang on. Time is turning like a wheel.
Dave
thanx Susan
keep up the great work
meanwhile
as if to see the dead
filled killers with
remorse
as if a sea of
blood can
cleanse
the murderer of
deadness
inside
these dead seed
death & an
emptiness
how blind
a ghost
sees
only blindness
& a dread of
seeing thru
a haunting
that gnaws on its
own fleshlessness
there is not blood
enough for this
killing stone
there is never
an end of
ghosts
coptright, ric 2006
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