Home after Home

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Home after Home
flattened
by bombs or explosives,
people have been displaced,
shoved to and fro like cattle
murdered, ten by ten,
dozen by dozen, in hundreds.
Little children, while they play in the streets,
women as they walk to the wells,
men searching for a bag of flour,
all expendable, gone!
But no flags fly at half mast
for them
no one hunts down their murderers,
crying “War!”
The slayers, instead,
are received by officials
of western ‘democracies’
while their hit men,
in camouflage uniforms
go house to house
with long guns, grenades, drones…
until all life has been extinguished.
We watch
hold our breaths.
In the streets
spattered with corpses,
amidst the dust and rubble
hope rises,
like a miracle,
a shimmering butterfly.

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