FOR A CHILD SAVING HIS CAT IN GAZA | THE PAIN OF GENOCIDE CANNOT BE PAUSED | INVISIBLE INK

FOR A CHILD SAVING HIS CAT IN GAZA

somewhere in Gaza
a gaunt child
is running
from the bombs
or
towards the bombs
he doesn’t know

what he does know is
he has saved his
beloved fluffy cat

he is proud
and determined
and grips his pet
as the animal huddles
petrified , eyes bulging,
in protective arms

the child talks to us
as he runs from
or
towards the bombs

the child informs us
with dead seriousness
how his terrified cat
has found new places to hide
since the war started

perhaps what the child
does not tell us
is that he learned to hide
in those new places
his cat found

perhaps what the child
has not yet found words to say
is that he too is terrified

the child runs
from the bombs
or
towards the bombs
off screen
out of our minds –
where is he
as I write ?

Will he survive?

If he does
he will remember he was not
a victim
because he saved his cat

(c) Julia Wright.November 9, 2023. All Rights Reserved to the medical and psychological needs of the children of Gaza surviving the ongoing Israeli bombings.

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THE PAIN OF GENOCIDE CANNOT BE PAUSED

this is the hour of the furnaces, we only see the light
Che Guevara

they say
they will inject
four hour pauses
daily
to sedate
the horror of the massacre –
to dull the pain

they hope
during their refueling time
we will go to sleep

but since October 7th
the lethal drip of their surgical
operation
has contaminated
the arteries
of our entire world

here
where i live
every morning
the sky is too blue
to be true
and
a century old acacia tree
spreads
disingenuous leaves

overthere
the pause
would be IDF lunchtime
in comfortable bunkers –
it would be Gaza’s trenchtime
as the collective South enlists

here
it would be our liberation schools –
time to hone more questions

can the sentient butterflies
native to our parts
feel the reverberation of bombs
so far
and yet so close to our hearts?

how do we filter
the gathering darkness?

how do we hear
the daily
distantly whispered
screams
of wounded children
without the words
to say them
without hands reached out?

how do we dip
our pens
in the blood
of our own eerily familiar
history of genocide?

how do those who annihilate
feel
being awol
from History?

how do they
not know
that the crime of genocide
cannot
merely be put
on pause button?

do they really think
they will succeed
in putting the ancestral pain
of so many landless peoples
on hold?

do they really think
their automated reassembled drones
can fast forward them
to victory –
a mere imperial click?

(c) Julia Wright. November 10th 2023. All Rights Reserved to the WCNSF – Wounded Children With No Surviving Families – in Gaza.

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INVISIBLE INK

even in this era
of the internet
high falutin’ folks
still have
what they like to call
calling cards –
little cardboard rectangles
letting the world know
the status of their stardom –
their State-approved titles
their ivy league diplomas
the name of award-winning best sellers
and
their elite status quo

having none of the above
i have no need
for a calling card –
but if i had one printed
it would be to proudly say
beneath my name
that i am the descendant
and livin’ and kickin’ survivor
of four planned genocides –
the Choctaw Nation
the Holocaust
the Elaine Massacre
and
Slavery

my calling card
embossed with the invisible ink
of legacy
would call on
a legion of gathered ancestors
to lead us forward
for Palestine
in total
indelible recall

(c) Julia Wright. November 12 2023. All Rights Reserved to the WCNSF – the wounded children with no surviving families – in Gaza