Poetry:  The boy in Gaza

by Haris Silajdzic

(On seeing a Palestinian boy staring at a wall and a bandaged donkey in Gaza on CNN in the early hours at Sarajevo in August 2014).

The wall in front of you
The wall behind you
The wall is all
This world has for you

But in your heart
Don’t let it grow
Young boy in Palestine
Don’t turn away
From the world
That has turned
Away from you

Allow the world
To feel ashamed
Looking you in the eye
The eye of a boy
Without boyhood

Ask
Whose hand
Ignoring death
Whose steady hand
Put the bandage
On your donkey’s leg

Ask
For you see farther
Facing the wall
Which hand
Will lead the world
The one that
Pulled the trigger
Or that which healed
Your wounded donkey

Turn around
Show the face
Of a boy that never was
Help the world
That has not helped you

For the sake
Of brave people from afar
Sharing with you
Death and Honor
In the name
Of the children in Nigeria
Syria, Mexico, Iraq
Abducted children in Australia
Dead children
On the bottom of the Mediterranean
Children still alive
In the mines and sweatshops
Children on the borders and wires
Waiting for a raindrop in deserts
Children in the Philippines
Somalia, Palestine and Bosnia
Children in the slums
Sleepless and dreamless

For the sake
Of all those
Unafraid of your memories –
Of wells with clear water
Of uncut olive trees
Last seen
In your grandfather’s eyes
When he talked of home –
The memories unscathed
By bullets and barbed wires

For the sake of children in Israel
Who bear no guilt

Turn around
Young boy in Palestine
Save this world

Help it be ashamed.

Haris Silajdzic
Sarajevo
August 2014