Photo courtesy of DCI Palestine
When I set off for Columbia University
to become a foreign correspondent,
to cover wars and peacemaking, famine,
floods, murders, kidnappings, larceny
on a global scale, I never imagined
that a government would seek
vengeance on my family, bombing
my spouse, daughter and son to ash.
I never could have conceived
that one day, while alive still
on this great old planet
with its ancient human families,
that I would see my colleague
suffer punishment by his nemesis,
a government engaged in carpet bombing
of neighborhoods and precision strikes
of journalists’ families among other
collateral associates of the pesky
and uncompromising truth seekers,
the head of Al Jazeera’s bureau
in Gaza and fellow unfortunate members
of the fourth estate whose wall
of lamentations now includes family
members pulverized in retribution.