Having just passed through the holidays into a new year, it’s time to think with our hearts as well as our heads. When we look at our world, how do we feel? What do we understand?
We must speak out against wrong doing. We are creating the future now. This poem by Hanan Mikha’il ‘Ashrawi, almost four years old, brings it home.
This world is our home, the only one we have. These are our children. And the young men and women, the soldiers, the combatants on all sides, are our children, as well. We must change our history of violence and make peace in order to save the future.
From the Diary of
Hanan Mikha’il ‘Ashrawi
Tomorrow, the bandages
will come off. I wonder
will I see half an orange,
half an apple, half my
mother’s face
with my one remaining eye?
I did not see the bullet
but felt its pain
exploding in my head.
His image did not
vanish, the soldier
with a big gun, unsteady
hands, and a look in
his eyes
I could not understand.
If I can see him so clearly
with my eyes closed,
it could be that inside our heads
we each have one spare set
of eyes
to make up for the ones we lose.
Next month, on my birthday,
I’ll have a brand new glass eye,
maybe things will look round
and fat in the middle –
I’ve gazed through all my marbles,
they made the world look strange.
I hear a nine-month-old
has also lost an eye,
I wonder if my soldier
shot her too – a soldier
looking for little girls who
look him in the eye –
I’m old enough, almost four,
I’ve seen enough of life,
but she’s just a baby
who didn’t know any better.
Quoted with permission from The Flag of Childhood, poems from the Middle East, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye
With concern, Sara and Jay Bremyer
McPherson, Kan.
First we need to accept that our brother’s children are also our own children. We are one.