has been playing on my mind since I first saw it several weeks ago, when the horror in Gaza was still relatively new. It has been playing on my mind over these long weeks since, weeks where politicians and pundits and media outlets have lined up to tell us that the thousands of men, women, and children who are being slaughtered in Gaza are just so much collateral damage.
The question What if it was your kids under the rubble? goes to the heart of what’s happening. The politicians – in the US and here in the UK – who block proposals for a ceasefire are bolstered by a certainty it will never be their family members or their loved ones who are in need of it, though they would move heaven and earth to stop the guns and tanks if they were.
Last night, I wrote a poem should an agency cleaner in the basement. It is a poem of hope, triggered by that graffiti. A Xmas poem. Of sorts. My thanks to CultureMatters and Yorkshire Bylines for publishing it this morning. If it strikes a chord with you, please share it however you wish.