From Birmingham Alabama to Qana Lebanon

Poem & artwork by Claire Carew

How do I restore your dignity my innocent sweet?

How do I give you my salute, my hug, my final kiss?

Maybe I’ll hold you in my arms

Drowning out the bombs, raining

down and sing you a song,

Hush now baby don’t you cry

I’m gonna sing you a lullaby

So pretty baby close your eyes

I am standing by your side

But instead I reel from your face

my stomach in knots, my head in a daze

I glanced at your lifeless bodies smeared

across the mass media

Bombed, shattered to pieces

Who has invaded these human beings?

Does anyone really believe that your deaths weren’t deliberate?

We all know the hypocrites

Wrapped up in warped ancient lies

You, you out there who supports this destruction

Did you sleep peacefully last night?

You, your hands washed in blood of the innocent ones

Come down from your ivory tower

Bulging eyes with madness you plummet

Ripping open children lives with air strikes

When are we going to demand a ceasefire

on the Lebanese Israeli border?

Bombing airports, homes and refuge shelters

Holding a country hostage, creating terror,

Mothers calling their children crying on cell phones

As everyone scrambles to get out of Lebanon

Relatives on vacation visiting with family celebrating with friends

No warning, just bombs

No answers just rockets

While some countries governments stayed

up nights getting their citizens out

Others delayed, then called off the rescue ships

Claiming it is too dangerous

Which government sits with pizza and pop

muttering such nonsense

of “Unfortunate circumstances” and “Measured response”?

Rice and Kofi Anan how did you two get mixed up in a mess like this?

My African-American sister do you remember Birmingham, Alabama?

The KKK bombed a church, in 1963 children killed

4 children attending Sunday school

Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair.

Do you remember this?

Then what is the difference?

From Birmingham to Qana Lebanon

Innocent lives blown to pieces

No dignity only shattered lives,

Farouk age 7 Fatima 7 months old

Stuffed in plastic bags with scribbled names for ID

Your contorted broken bodies lie lifeless in fetal positions,

God only knows the horrors you faced in your final hours.

Hiding, hungry, thirsty on dirty filthy rooms

Curled up, dragged up for the world to see

Make shifts morgues

Make shift stretchers.

Is it out of jealousy that they bomb, target and kill?

I didn’t know, countries find peace like this.

How do I restore your dignity your humanity?

Do I paint your beautiful face?

What about your loved ones?

How do they carry on with you gone?

Yet I see a glimmer of hope in the face of the world’s people

Love for family, love for kin

Reunited at airports, bus stations and ferry docks

Clutching flowers and teddy bears

Teenagers and parents hugging not arguing

Daddy and Mommy caressing babies

Lovers in a passionate embrace

Now this is the true human race

Peace be unto to you my innocent sweet

Peace holds you in her arms

Sings you a lullaby

Your lives short but not sweet

Peace be unto you in your eternal sleep

Peace Peace Peace

1 August 2006

posted 3 August 2006