NightingaleSea

the witness

O, Watcher of the Wasting Limb,

You who see the spirit dim,

Who witnesses the hollowed gaze

In Gaza’s smoke-filled, endless days.

You who counts each silent tear,

In the heart of suffocating fear,

Where the body, in its desperate plea,

Begins to feed on memory,

And a mother’s prayer is a silent scream

For just a sip from a poisoned stream.

The Indictment

And World, with your averted eyes,

Do you not hear the children’s cries?

Do you not see the ledger kept,

Of promises and laws unwept?

The cold calculus of might,

That plunges cities into night,

And wields the weapon of the empty plate,

To seal a generation’s fate.

Oh, turn your face from your own ease,

And hear the whisper in the breeze.

The Truth of Peace

For peace is not a word we speak

To minds besieged by want and dread.

It is not built on maps and ink

While hungry mouths go yet unfed.

It cannot grow in frozen ground,

Or in the soul by sorrow bound.

No treaty signed, no righteous claim,

Can soothe a body wracked with pain.

First, let there be food, a warming fire,

To quell the body’s base desire.

Only with warmth and gentle bread,

Can the first words of peace be said.

And do not say this search is vain,

A fool’s pursuit in endless rain.

Peace is not a ghost, a distant star,

It’s closer than we think we are.

It is real, a choice our hands can make,

A solemn, sacred oath to take.

It is the courage to commit,

When all our weary senses quit.

It is the will to build anew,

To believe a different truth is true.

So let the silos of the world

Unlock their cold and guarded keep.

Let gentle flags of aid unfurl

To rouse the soul from tragic sleep.

Let every nation feel the call,

To lift the ones who starve and fall.

For in the dignity of a meal,

The wound of hatred starts to heal.

Let peace begin, a tender shoot,

In earth made soft by mercy’s root.

Let it begin with us, today.

Amen. Let it be the only way.

“Ameen…”