Younger than War
By Mosab Abu Toha
Tanks roll through dust,
through eggplant fields.
Beds unmade, lightning in the sky, brother
jumping to the window to watch warplanes.
Clouds of smoke
after air strikes.
Warplanes: eagles
searching for a branch on which to perch.
No need for radio:
We are the news.
Ants’ ears hurt with each bullet
fired from wrathful machine guns.
Soldiers advance, burn books.
Some smoked rolled sheets of yesterday’s newspapers,
just like they did
when they were kids.
Our kids hide in the basement,
backs against concrete pillars,
heads between knees,
parents silent.
Humid down there
and heat of burning bombs
adds to the slow death
of survival.
In September 2000,
I bought bread for dinner.
I saw a helicopter fire a rocket
into a tower,
concrete and glass
fell from high.
Loaves
of stale bread.
At the time,
I was seven:
decades younger than war,
a few years older than bombs.
From Forest of Noise: Poems by Mosab Abu Toha
Also available in Poems from and for Palestine and Lebanon (October 2024).
