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THOSE POLICEMAN ARE SLEEPING:
A CALL TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
Caption: Four Palestinian police officers lie dead in
a Ramallah office building, Saturday, March 30, 2002.
The five bodies (one not pictured) all with gunshot
wounds to the head, were laying in a dark hallway
where the walls were splattered with blood and bullet
holes. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Those policemen are sleeping. They lie,
five in a doorway, each one neatly shot in the head,
huddled like derelicts. In the dereliction of death,
they cannot guard
Ramallah, or Arafat, or anything or anyone.
They cannot guard children or mothers or old men.
Their blood, no longer confined, dances freely out the
doorway
toward blasted olive groves and rubble of bulldozed
homes
and shows its sad triumph in the street:
We are fathers, lovers, people like yourselves!
it cries.
Inside the doorway, decaying meat. To dump in a pit.
A
few miles away Israeli children are sleeping. Dead in
holiday clothes.
A Palestinian boy in pieces among them. They are all
sleeping, sleeping,
all belong to one signature. They don’t need
identification cards,
or passports. They don’t need to sign in or sign up.
God/Allah/Jehovah welcomes them. It’s like a festival
in heaven.
Pesach and Easter, cakes and goodies and traditional
sayings,
chanting and singing and hard-boiled eggs,
bitter herbs and date cakes. All the shades sharing
one earth,
a single territory, the air sweet above them, the sky
a heavenly blue,
while the music of the spheres, like bells of
sunlight,
chimes each flight into heaven.
War
keeps taking, taking
sucks marrow,
marries the dead to the dead
and the living to the dead.
War is insatiable,
it has a stomach for youth
the delectable sweetness of babies
it spits out old people
it spares lives as lottery prizes.
And
faith? What of faith?
I have faith in sunlight, in moonlight,
in a dandelion that gives its bitter food
and plain beauty,
in a smile, in the smell of soap,
in a page turned slowly,
faith in the Jesus of Peace, the Muhammad of Peace,
the Moses of Peace, the Buddha of Peace,
I have faith in the possible footsteps
of Gandhi and King.
What Moloch is this who beckons Israel?
And beckons Palestine?
Or is it a brave ancestor who fought vainly,
who summons you to his fate?
Is the world better off
for the killing?
Cure yourselves of the past.
It loves only itself.
Its plagues of grief and vengeance
that heavily armor the heart
and seemingly coat it with mail
can be as light as a shroud
or a mirage
in your vision.
Another world is possible.
In nearly 30 years as a published writer, D.H. Melhem
has written five books of poetry, one novel, two
critical works on Black poets, and a creative writing
workbook. She has also provided chapters in 10 books,
including critical works and an encyclopedia, had a
musical drama produced, and published over 50 essays.
D.H. has read across the country, in venues ranging
from the Library of Congress and New York’s Town Hall
to libraries, universities, schools and cafes.
Some of Melhem's work is currently featured in the
exhibition, "A Community of Many Worlds: Arab
Americans in New York City," shown now through August
2002, at The Museum of
the City of New York.
Other projects and readings will be noted and updated
from time to time on her website,
http://dhmelhem.home.att.net/. |