All Things Not Considered

By Naomi Shihab Nye

You cannot stitch the breath

back into this boy.

A brother and sister were playing with toys

when their room exploded.

In what language

is this holy?

The Jewish boys killed in the cave

were skipping school, having an adventure.

Asel Asleh, Palestinian, age 17, believed in the field

beyond right and wrong where people came together

to talk. He kneeled to help someone else

stand up before he was shot.

If this is holy,

could we have some new religions please?

Mohammed al-Durra huddled against his father

in the street, terrified. The whole world saw him die.

An Arab father on crutches burying his 4 month girl weeps,

“I spit in the face of this ugly world.”

Most of us would take our children over land.

We would walk in the fields forever homeless

with our children,

huddle under cliffs, eat crumbs and berries,

to keep our children.

This is what we say from a distance

because we can say whatever we want.

No one was right.

Everyone was wrong.

What if they’d get together

and say that?

At a certain point

the flawed narrator wins.

People made mistakes for decades.

Everyone hurt in similar ways

at different times.

Some picked up guns because guns were given.

If they were holy it was okay to use guns.

Some picked up stones because they had them.

They had millions of them.

They might have picked up turnip roots

or olive pits.

Picking up things to throw and shoot:

at the same time people were studying history,

going to school.

The curl of a baby’s graceful ear.

The calm of a bucket

waiting for water.

Orchards of the old Arab men

who knew each tree.

Jewish and Arab women

standing silently together.

Generations of black.

Are people the only holy land?


p/s: This poems make me cry and the videos that i watch make me almost numb...How could they do this!!!...But i believe whatever goes around comes around.....