Twenty-two months.
The spectre rises, stark and grey:
a ‘complete military takeover’.
A war, a grinding stone
against the soul of the besieged strip.
The air thickens—
not with turning seasons,
not with harvests gathered,
not with hope,
but the metallic scent of futures foreclosed.
Forget liberation. Forget peace.
Despite intense international pressure.
the heavy boot still romps,
the absolute claim for a ceasefire,
falters still.
Within the walls,
appalling conditions
bloom like poison flowers.
Hunger writes its skeletal script
on limbs too frail.
Malnutrition clouds
the eyes of children
who know only the geometry of ruin.
Starvation gnaws constantly
like a grinding stone.
And in chambers distant,
lit by screens and strategy,
the Prime Minister,
his defence minister,
ponder over maps, not faces.
The decision hangs like
a blade above the strip of Gaza.
Will the sands of time
become concrete,
poured over rubble and broken bones?
Or will a different wind stir, carrying seeds,
not shrapnel, on its breath?
Only the unwritten pages know
what follows the complete military takeover
beneath the shadow of the twenty-third month.
***
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at [email protected].
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