Poem

I was listening to a song that sings beautifully of peace on earth. It is by Josh Schicker and you can hear it on his website. It is a Christmas song. It is beautiful because it is also slightly mournful.

Peace made me think of a poem that I had not thought of for a couple years. Reading this poem again made me want to post it. Posting it makes me think that we should post poetry more often here - other people's and occasionally our own. So here's the first. It was written after the poet heard a military man during a press conference use the phrase "killed by a stray bullet".

For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, Age 15
Naomi Shihab Nye

There is no stray bullet, sirs.
No bullet like a worried cat
crouching under a bush,
no half-hairless puppy bullet
dodging midnight streets.
The bullet could not be a pecan
plunking the tin roof,
not hardly, no fluff of pollen
on October's breath,
no humble pebble at our feet.

So don't gentle it, please.

We live among stray thoughts,
tasks abandoned midstream.
Our fickle hearts are fat
with stray devotions, we feel at home
among bits and pieces,
all the wandering ways of words.

But this bullet had no innocence, did not
wish anyone well, you can't tell us otherwise
by naming it mildly, this bullet was never the friend
of life, should not be granted immunity
by soft saying—friendly fire, straying death-eye,
why have we given the wrong weight to what we do?

Mohammed, Mohammed, deserves the truth.
This bullet had no secret happy hopes,
it was not singing to itself with eyes closed
under the bridge.

From You and Yours (CBOA Editions, 2005)