God In Gaza?
Look:
There, on that hospital floor demolished by OUR bombs,
crowded with patients with no place to flee;
Look:
in tents of the displaced masses, fire-bombed at night, children -clinging to IVs- burned alive,
(MAY IT HAVE BEEN INSTANT!!!);
At mass graves, row upon row, in their blue uniforms of plastic body bags;
no relatives to mourn or bless, for they too are dead, bulldozed alive by Israeli madmen
grinning from ear to ear, as they plow them under, driving OUR John Deere tractors.
Along rubble lined street after street, hollow apartments now shells
of souls exposed;
And there, where no one can say prayers over precious children, readied outside for burial,
only to have famished dogs drag them into the night,
ravenously tearing away soft skin, gnawing on supple limbs of boys who had petted them;
At the side of a young doctor gently closing the eyes of her sweet child,
vacant, helpless to help;
Or witnessing Gaza’s last surgeon standing: reviled, tortured, spat upon, executed,
ridding them of one less “subhuman, ” who, after all, could have saved another,
which only meant wasting an extra round, and for what?!
Grieving beside Love’s wrenching angst;
struggling to comfort remnant families with holy verses’ fragile hopes
of a heaven where the Patmos prophet forsees the Almighty
put all aside, in order to dry every tear from eyes all cried out.
Listen for that Voice out of every make-shift shelter not yet levelled
by America’s shit-load of armaments;
Standing aside the Jesus who uncontrollably weeps,
refusing to be consoled like the mothers of storied Ramah,
until his beloved Lazarus rises up from the deep stone-black tomb in Bethany.
Not an irenic peace “God-willing!”:
God yearns for that to be, damn it all to hell!
Not looking for Paradise:
NOW!
Look:
Mother must stay by her daughters and sons in agony, no matter where, no matter when,
no matter the cost.
To a child crying in the cold
come three Kings to worship Him
for this child can bestow
kingdoms, life, glory, and heaven.*
—
* Spanish carol: A nun nino llorando. by Francisco Guerrero, 16th century
** note: not one of the images is fictional.
—
Peter Kakos, Northampton, Mass., December, 2024
