We have no uncontaminated
words for this: they have become
like chemically saturated soil.
War is stretched beyond any
meaning it may have had
in Dresden. Even in My Lai.
Not worse–already “pitched
past pitch of grief”–but honed
by devices and amplified desires
and feckless ingenuity.
Strike too small a term to cover
hospitals, homes, places
of worship, 163 girls in school
suddenly turned to dust.
Some strikes, we are to understand,
are surgical. Limbs are removed.
Then tongues and eyes.
Defense raises a question
whose answer can only be
a lie—or a question: from what?
Five smooth stones?
We don’t speak of killing.
We take them out. We neutralize them.
Pacify rhymes with crucify.
Washington is considering putting
boots on the ground. Whose
boots these are I think I know.
You will find them in the rubble
among the sandals and scarves.
13 Responses
Powerful and heartbreaking
Heavy sigh.
Thanks for this. We have the means to empathize with the victims suffering death from American weapons. We should not neglect to do so. They are image bearers of God, just as we are, and therefore deserve our compassion and mercy.
“Whose
Boots are these I think I know”
is an apt counterpoint to the peaceful opening lines of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Thank you, Marilyn, for putting voice to a heart’s cry.
So powerful, Marilyn. Thank you for the way your poem shows how we contaminate language to hide our horrific behavior. We even employ poetic devices, as the last stanza shows, to forget that actual human individuals are responsible for the killing or at risk of being killed: “Washington” can’t be tried for war crimes, and “boots” have no family to grieve their loss.
I appreciate this poem very much. It tells stark truth. The only point I would add is that we also need to recognize the humanity and recognize the horror of what the government of Iran has done to its own people- killing tens of thousands of protesters. in the past weeks. This is not to justify what the US is doing. It is simply to speak the full truth.
And Jesus wept.
Thank you. So powerful. Christ have mercy.
I was substitute teaching when I read this (the students were doing independent work). I couldn’t share the whole poem but did write the second last verse on the board. All good, but something about that one made me want to share it.
Enragingly apt …
Wow.
Thank you all for responding so kindly. It’s a hard moment we’re all having to witness. I think more these days about what it means to “bear” witness as we watch what is almost unbearable unfold.