Today at least 100 people died in Iraq
From this picture on the BBC website.
I do not know much about the politics of this place
but I see you
holding your child
and he looks like mine.
The same Adidas stripes
the same socked feet
the same band of pale skin
where the sweat shirt gapes
and I hope so much
that he sleeps in your arms
that tomorrow he wakes
smiles and stretches
- as if from a bad dream.
I do not know much about the politics of this place
but I see you
holding your child
and he looks like mine.
The same Adidas stripes
the same socked feet
the same band of pale skin
where the sweat shirt gapes
and I hope so much
that he sleeps in your arms
that tomorrow he wakes
smiles and stretches
- as if from a bad dream.
posted by Clare Dudman at 9:30 pm
6 Comments:
Oh yes Clare that is so heartbreaking - I avoid newsreel pictures as much as I can - it's an ostrich approach I confess. It's just ... how much can we bear to see?
Your poem is both sweet and bitter and sums up the anguish in a very powerful way.
I loved your description of the party in an earlier blog - I knew you'd enjoy yourself ;) I think I believed your interest in people would win out - introvert or not. All the same, I think you are very brave - believe me I know how fast your heart would have been beating!
I like the detail" where the sweatshirt gapes".
Thanks CB and Jan - this was just a reaction - I looked at the photo on the website and this is what came to mind in the few seconds that followed it. It is not really meant to be anything artistic- although I've written it in the form of a poem - I just wanted the event marked in some way. 100 people died. The photo made me think for a while about that. I think I have become desensitised to the horror going on there because it has been going on for so long but when I saw that picture I felt I saw something so universal - that son could be anyone's son.
Hard to walk, the world's such a broken, jagged place. Keep putting the little pieces together; maybe someday it will make sense.
A salutory reminder not always to focus on our own, sometimes petty, concerns.
This was very moving Clare.
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