Reflecting on Gaza
Anne Benjamin
I
on a night
sharp with winter ice
burning skin —
Israel swears revenge
Hamas swears days of wrath
II
before the bombing
choked of necessities
grim survival —
women scrounge for money
to buy vermin-riddled flour
III
in houses
close to the target
windows shatter —
a sixteen year old girl
dies from cold and fright
IV
phosphorus
above empty streets
arches —
politicians promise
vengeance will bring peace
V
after the bombing
they dispatch supplies
medicine and food —
a doctor waits
beside children's corpses
VI
morning comes
red with haze and fire —
swirling in the dust
from Gaza and Israel
children play together
Lament over Gaza
Deborah Ruiz Wall
It crushes my heart to watch
injured and lifeless children
in Gaza — collateral damage
or sheer madness?
'Land is life', my Indigenous mentors
proclaimed, but I see its antithesis
now when tortured eyes conjure
bipolar images of stories retold
over and over by diasporic tribes
where past, present and future
coalesce in a war of retribution
so that in Palestine: land equals death.
Talk is not cheap, the war machine
that silences the whispering from beyond
our earthly dreams, will keep us all in chains
— away from reaching the fullness
of our humanity, away from
our oneness with the sanctity of all life.
Anne Benjamin has won awards for her short stories and her educational publications and has had some poetry published. She presently works part-time as a consultant and is Adjunct Professor within the School of Leadership Australian Catholic University Strathfield.
Deborah Ruiz Wall is the author of Reconciliation, Love and Other Poems (Women's Reconciliation Network, Sydney, 2006) and a former board member of the NSW Reconciliation Council.