The Switch Strikes

        The boy calls for his mama in Hebrew
The father calls for his daughter in Arabic
        Tears streak a chubby face and the switch strikes
Fingernails scrape against the ceiling fragments, floor remnants
        His head bobbles on a tiny neck--body hasn’t caught up yet
All of her future, all of her now, within walls of was
        “Call for your mama Jew lover!” And the switch strikes
Then he uncovers them: tiny toes, a little foot
        And the switch strikes

                A wail of incomprehension

        The boy calls for his mama
The father calls for his daughter
                And the switch strikes

        This is my boy, my very own boy,
        I see his hands reach for his mama
This is my daughter, my very own daughter,
I see her baby foot in the rubble

O Canaan
Canaan!
O Canaanites

Jew or Gentile, Arab or Hebrew, Israeli or Palestinian
Can you not see?
You kill my babies
Can you not see that they are all my babies?
They are all my little ones
Let them come to me

Let me take them up into my arms and take their tears
Let me envelop their tiny hands in my palms
Let me comfort them

O Canaan are you not steeped in enough blood already?
Do your stones not cry out at the blood there?
The blood of your brothers
The blood of Abraham’s sons
The blood of my little ones

But who will stop? The starters or the finishers? Or last time’s starters or finishers?
Or those who started before?
Back past all the hateful deeds of terrorists
                                                    tyrants
                                            colonists
                                        caliphs
                                   caesars
                        and madmen

to Joshua clearing the promised land of the first Canaanites

                    Finishing that aliyah

                    At the end of a spear

A jihad before that word was spoken in this land
A jihad in a land that continues to scream in the voice of its children that

                                       NO WAR IS HOLY

But still,
The Jew is killed
The Arab is killed
The aliyah continues
What aliyah is there still?
The struggle (the true jihad) up from the pit of hatred
The Aliyah to a new (renewed) promised land

Let it be the one where my little ones are free
Let it be the one where I hold them in my arms

            If not Israel
            If not Palestine
            Be a New Canaan

Be a new people of six-pointed star and crescent
Be a new people of green, blue, and white
Be a new people of olive branch and dove

Or draw your lines starting in Gehinnom
and let the little ones be burned in the mouth of Moloch
while you blame your brothers

and the switch strikes.