MAPA Voices: “Empty words” by Grace Sanford

Peace Advocate February 2024

Photo by Ömer Y?ld?z on Unsplash

Empty words

What is this world
We live in?

We change the numbers
Of deaths each week
Delete a three, add a six
Such a simple task
But is the result
Of horror we
can’t imagine.
An execution, delete, add 15
A bombing, delete, add 57
Gunfire, delete add 4

I don’t understand
What is so hard
To comprehend

The one who
Is perpetrating
the Slaughtering is the one
Who is the martyr?

How can that be?

But how can we,
Stand by
Watching worlds shrivel
Away behind dust and fire
When we know
The only way some
Survive is to
Grind animal seed
Into paste

When we know the
Innocent
Waving white flags of
Surrender
Get shot in the streets

When we know
Morgues are
Overflowing
And body bags pile
Up in mass graves
While our brave leaders
Say they
Are doing
All they can.

Can we not do
More?

Yes,
but we have chosen to
Stand back,
Only having enough courage to murmur
“our hearts
Break for those
Who are dying”
As we watch
The war crimes
Continue to rise.

Those empty words
We spout
Are meaningless,
And we must continue
To say them
No longer.

 

 

One life lost is a whole world lost,
One life saved is a whole world saved.

Grace Sanford is a student at Northeastern University and a Massachusetts Peace Action intern.