(A poem for the map that burns)
In just three days, the sky grew teeth,
and bit six nations into grief.
Palestine, already ash and ache,
was struck again, as if to break
what’s already broken.
Six Names in Three Days
Lebanon’s hills, where cedars pray,
shuddered under warplanes’ sway.
Syria’s night turned siren-red,
its wounded cities counting dead
in silence, again.
Six Names in Three Days
Tunisia’s coast, where boats set sail
with hope and aid, now tells the tale
of fire on deck, of drone and flame,
a flotilla struck, without a name
for peace betrayed.
Six Names in Three Days
Qatar, the voice of ceasefire talks,
was bombed mid-sentence, mid-diplomats’ walks.
Smoke rose over Doha’s glass,
where leaders met to end the past,
but war arrived first.
Six Names in Three Days
And Yemen, long a battered drum,
was struck anew, its people numb.
The desert weeps, the mountains moan,
as missiles find another home
in hunger’s cradle.
Six names in three days.
Six wounds on the map.
Each one a prayer interrupted,
a child’s sleep shattered,
a border crossed without consent.
And still, the world spins.
And still, the ink dries.
And still, we write poems
because silence is complicity
and memory is resistance.