Photo courtesy of Arab News
The reporter gives us news and despite
the agony in details: shrapnel killing
kids, hospitals, schools and mosques
bombed with two thousand pound
projectiles, almost two million people
displaced, hounded, on the run, we feel
order conserved, written into the lede,
helmet emblazoned with the white
word press, its voice trusted
on television, the internet. But
this pounding from sky and land
twists truth: reporter too the target,
and the silence of lambs after
slaughter goal of the terror, where
nobody can feel safe, even if
they carry white flags or helmets:
more than 100 journalists killed
in three months of butchery;
aid administrators, doctors,
teachers and poets silenced.
When can these and taxi
drivers, and donkey riders,
and dentists and all other
workers, also diminished,
go back to their routes
and root canals, markets
and classrooms, in the open
air now, without terror?