Day 599

with gratitude to Dr Ezzideen Shehab


Do not look away.  However painful 
the child without arms, the child
who runs screaming from the bombed house
where everyone in her family
is burning, the child
who is only bones, the mother
who bends over the charred bodies
of her daughters and sons, attempting
to embrace them: do not
look away.  Do not turn your face
from the infants who lived for a week,
a month, then froze 
or wasted away.  Do not shrink
from the viciousness that is swallowing them. 
Fix your gaze on the darkness, the emptiness.
As long as you witness, they will not
be forgotten.  They will not have slipped
into death unnoticed.  Do not let yourself
be deterred by your own pain.  Look
longer.  Look more deeply.  If your eyes
can’t withstand it, look
with your soul.  Let your soul
make its final stand against the void.