Photo courtesy of HRW
The recital called in the name of war and peace
did not finish in peace. A late reader from
the world of the Open Mic rose up to question
the current definition of genocide in an aside
before the full house, and the audience on Zoom,
proceeding then to read a poem about non-attachment.
Unpleasant that moment, everybody caught by
the persistence of her story versus mine
and the received wisdom of American generations
raised to believe in the Jewish homeland
as another kind of solution, happier, more fitting
except it depended on displacing older occupants
of the land and cities like Jaffa, Haifa, Safad,
their renaming supported recently by two thousand
pound bomb delivery and our European soldiers
and settlers in the land of Arabs–and other
Muslims multiplying–who need to be muzzled
before their call to prayer becomes another call
to arms, from river to sea. We have to build a wall,
set up different roads for different folks, and march
towards the future in Jim Crow 2024.