LETTER FROM A FAMILY UNDER SURGE

[kpete]

LETTER FROM A FAMILY UNDER SURGE

Only one of them died, Mr. Bush, the night our recovering little enclave
Exploded again under your newest killing scheme.
A jagged chunk of concrete crashed through our window
And cracked her little skull.
But she stayed conscious a long time
Shrieking and wailing from the splitting pain of mortal injury
But even more from the dizzying disbelief and soul-wounding
Knowledge that a grown-up did this to her on purpose
She looked at me with pleading, prayerful, black Arab eyes
Wanting desperately for me to make this all better
Like I had always done before
But somehow knowing I could not
I felt I was betraying my own baby as she bled out on my bosom

Do you know the pain, Mr Bush of watching your child die
And being powerless to stop it?
Do you know the unholy torment of the look in your others children’s eyes
As they realize their own mother cannot protect them?

My second little girl lived two more weeks
She had a cold, just a little cold
Before the lights went out, the water stopped
The sewage and garbage began to pile up, the bodies to rot
All the medicine ran out
The doctors could not move, nor could we.
You did not count on our resolve to fight you in the streets
You thought we would accept your purge
Your conquer and plunder of our ancestral lands
You are both foolish and arrogant to believe that only you know the truth
That only smart bombs and titanium armor breed courage
She got a cough, then a fever, then the fluid began to take her
She gasped for days, determined to outlive this horror
But the bubbling hot, fire-stoked, thick mud in her lungs was too much
Two dollars worth of penicillin would have saved her

Just after her last breath, my oldest son, a sweet, smart 16-year old,
Burst out the door in a terrifying bloodlusted rage
Wholly lost in hatred and vengeance he flung himself wildly at your guns
Futilely and insanely
AND WITH MORE COURAGE AND
PURE BEAUTY THAN I HAD EVER SEEN
He hurled rocks and broken glass against your bullets
For a flashing instant I was so proud of him
But then I realized he too was about to die in front of me
Shredded by a close-quarters, urbanized-warfare, anti-personnel unit,
By which you mean a slaughtering machine

My oldest daughter, barely Fourteen, I swear, Mr. Bush, she just died of grief
She simply could not live in a world where
Human beings actually do this to each other
She wanted to be a mother one day
To labor to create and nurture life herself
She had no place in a world of men who could destroy it so causally

I watched my second oldest boy, a proud, but half-starved Twelve-year old
Say a Prayer for my soul just before I closed my eyes for the last time
Can you imagine the pain, Mr. Bush, of watching your young child
Watch you die?
With my last conscious act I prayed that he would live through this
That one day he would come to your country
Show up on your door step

And looking you right in the eyes
Drop to his knees to wash your feet
So I can know that for at least one moment in your life
You were able to experience

The true heart of God

And to learn
What all the Christs of all the ages have meant
By the word Love.


http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_bruce_al_080516_a_poem_to_feel_the_w.htm

a poem about the violence, from someone who has never been in war. Written in February 2003, anticipating the horror of what everyone then thought would be a long, gruesome siege and urban battle in Baghdad.

[auntAgonist]

1. heartbreaking

:cry:

just heartbreaking.