Palestine Poems

1:30AM

by Johann Funk, CPT Reservist

Jesh! Jesh!
searchlight sweeping
headlights framing
Nicoletta’s outstretched arms
STOP!  STOP!
jeep #911019
villagers on high alert
streaming toward the intrusion
peacemakers in position
soldiers cocooning
armor plated
tableau of resistance
putting the occupier on notice

Al Jannah

by Marilyn Paarlberg, Delegation member

The daffodils stayed up to welcome us home.
So did the flowering vinca,
and the forsythia, as if
they’d been waiting,
heads cocked for the airport cab
that would spit us back onto familiar soil.
We fell into the embrace of green,
of our garden yard, and spring,
and the promise of lilacs
beneath an open window.

Sinking grateful into sleep
we dreamed of another paradise
whose soil still clung to our shoes.
Of gentle slopes, of flocks
grazing ancient valleys in the Hebron hills.
And older still, of that Eden home
where nature rose up in welcome,
where all creation sang its Te Deum,
where all manner of beings flourished
side by side in Shalom, Salaam,
before any dark angel
could lift his dreaded,
banishing arm.