​

What to do with a world covering its 

Victims with blankets: nearest of kin must be 

Notified first, no one knows whether a child 

Or relative had gone to a mass shooting

Or a concert? Where infants and cities 

Shrink or crumble in a war never their own 

Or of their making, but heat-seeking missiles 

Or blind drones have found their targets: 

A school bus or a wedding party but not 

The tent or tunnel of the chief terrorist 

But everyone running for their life are 

Potential assassins. Is there a chance we could 

Zap the scenes by remote, freeze the action, 

Turn off the sound, switch to another channel, 

Twist reality to an alternate universe—

 

Where Famine becomes Plenitude of water

And fruit, beaches are not choked with plastic,

Fire tearing into flesh becomes a  mother’s

Caress? Where families are whole,

And backyards are picnics in God’s Paradise?

O give us back our world, Whoever holds

The Remote: And after this, our exile

In a shadow cosmos, return us Home,

Show us the fruit of thy womb.

 

​

27 November 2018