Gandhi’s Children
If we are to reach real peace in this world we shall have to begin with the children. — Gandhi
Opening the morning news, I stare
into the face of a mother, cradling a child,
blank saucers gazing at her house of rubble.
Who should she trust in this quest
of men against men and war of gods?
Words on the page written in blood
scrawls revive our terror colored by alerts,
and warnings of anything that moves.
Yet, when we discover
the fox in our yard, intruder of our space,
we do not banish her, do not shoot to kill,
do not fight over boundary lines, last breath
going down. She is merely passing through,
touching the soil with wings we know, wings
that will fly us to the same heaven—foxes,
Iraqis, Americans all in the same grave,
mothers leaning over to cover children
with the same good-bye.
“Gandhi’s Children” has appeared in an earlier version as a Poem of the Week on Voices in Wartime and Poets Against the War websites.
