Eyeless in Gaza
('Finish him off Smokey') Smokey Howson on tv
Recalling his war.
I watch his sad eyes, this old man
In his nineties -
An Aussie who had fought in the jungles
Of New Guinea against the Japs.
He had stared into the eyes of the dying man
Before he shot him:
'I have seen those eyes ever since.'
Only dementia or death, it seems,
Will absolve him from the judgment
Of his own sleeping conscience -
Which woke when war was done.
How easy to kill from a distance.
From a high-powered jet it's more like a game –
And no one weeps a thousand feet away.
How straight forward it is to destroy Hamas,
The Angel of Death in fancy dress.
But when a soldier stumbles in the rubble
And comes across a dead or dying child,
Does he look into the eyes of another
From a different tribe, or the eyes
Of a child who could have been his brother?
No comments:
Post a Comment