another day, another bomb, another shelling
another round of death, injury, despair
families fleeing from one place of danger
to ..... well there is no place of safety
free from a bomb-aimer's cross-hairs
not watched through drone-pilot's screen
excluded from tank-driver's fire zones
trying to find such shelter as can be
surrounded by the stench of the dead
among the rubble, broken homes
shattered schools, hospitals, mosques
parents, children, old, young surviving
deemed a non-people with no rights
lives, homes, land, future extirpated
sacrificed on the altar of war
holocausts to ethnic cleansing
those long-harboured ambitions
for racial and religious purity
promised land, the river to the sea
homeland for us not them

and yet, says the prophet
'the people have forsaken me
have profaned this place
making offerings to other gods
filling this place
with the blood of the innocent'

so to whom should we listen, him
or to the politicians and demagogues
generals and war-mongers
are there no peace-makers
not the peace-wishers, peace-hopers
woe-is-us hand-wringers
nor those determined on a final solution
the land-siezers and settlers
the Costa-del-Gaza developers
for whom there is only one peace, ours
total surrender, complete exile

and yet, as another prophet said
'he will judge between many peoples
and arbitrate between mighty nations
they will beat their swords into ploughshares
and their spears into pruning-hooks
nation will not lift sword against nation
or ever again be trained to make war
but each will sit under their vine and fig tree with no one to trouble him'

except they bulldozed the vines
figs and olives


Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
3rd April 2025
following Jeremiah 19.4 & Micah 4.3-4