When A Child Is Storm

We live in an Old Testament age. Christ’s New one acts as sigil,
But these last months in Gaza God’s badge is blood smeared
And not just from the street but from the hearts beneath
Its frail cover, protecting above beds, the known monsters
Who send screaming children to their deaths, doused in fear.

On January 29th the five year old Hind Rajab was attempting
With her family to escape Gaza City. Israeli troops fired,
Killing the protective hands this child held. She and her cousin
Layan survived before a tank like plague came to claim them,
Their distress call was recorded by the Palestinian Red Crescent

Society, as these precious saplings saw the forest of life
Duly felled. Now, ten months on, there are countless more
Tales for the telling. Owen Jones has the story in his Guardian
Article. But that is no longer the point, as papers now cancel
Scripture and the name of God and need for it has been split

Like the atom to make so many more damned and defamed
Particles. We talk of faith, do we not, in whatever religion
We practice. Not that practice makes perfect, as what it makes
Now falls maligned into the mired space between so called
Man and his maker, who redrafted life to start over, after ice

And flood, to make this; Eden’s garden ransacked,
And as full of Serpents as ever; be they Prime Ministers,
Soldiers, or Presidents seeking babies on which to plant
That old Judas kiss. Israel defames both sanctity
And the sacred, for the profane. It kills children,

And willingly it would seem. As its were killed once;
Isaac’s lucky sweat falling on them; and yet just
As he feared his father, so Nazi, or even historical Egyptian
Revenge sours dreams and abuses day, as this broken
Homeland fails and features more horror than Herod

And yet another spear on Christ’s side. Water still flows,
But this is not restorative rivers. It is spit and tears,
Tears and torment across the fabric of so called faith.
Its divide. And in a way that separates all, when a blameless
Child howls while hurting. And so in those streets a storm

Gathers and ruins the world. The trees twisted, and the apple
And Eve now lay splattered. Your Paradise is in pieces. God
Seeks a new star to start over. The future needs suture.
Hind Rajab and so many, Abraham, Isaac, Jesus and Jude,
                                                                          Adam…died.

 

 

David Erdos 4/10/24

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/18/hind-rajab-israeli-state-atrocity

 

 

 

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