Concrete. Concrete dirt and concrete clothing
and concrete skin and concrete air. All
grey but for the fires and the maroon
and crimson and black marks of ash.
The ghostly father doddered down the residue
in barren feet. He held his arms wide and puffed
his chest. He hoped for an embrace from God.
Atop the rubble the mother hunched over the child. She
seeped. She jiggled and jounced the body, waking her young one
for school. The body’s blood pooled under its shirt and streamed down
the mound.
The father reached the bottom and dropped to his knees. As
if in slow motion, he clasped his head and caterwauled,
“Who will wipe this blood off us?
What water is there for us to clean ourselves?”
His child’s life crossed his feet.
God had left him.
-
by Aleksander Mielnikow (Alek the Poet)
I am not going to make poetry in an effort to make a change. But when the poem ends up being important I like to point it out.
This scene, despite it's poetic nature, is a scene that happens to many across this world. Regardless of whether you hate all violence or understand the need for action, the use of explosives among civilians, on all sides, must stop. The foundational damage and the emotional toll on survivors and, worst of all, the lives needlessly taken is horrible. And though casualties are a unfortunate aspect of war, there's a difference between stray bullets and laying out landmines or dropping rockets.
If you know a way to stop this, whether through charitable foundations or, preferably, directly influencing higher powers to alter their tactics, please help us all out.