by Carol Aronoff
Who will tend your olive groves when you are old,
rebuild your war-torn houses, find treasures
in the rubble of innocent lives?
I cannot fathom daily terror that sours milk,
curdling dreams before they even germinate.
I cannot look you in the eye and tell you things
will soon be better.
God knows I’d like to.
I haven’t walked in your shoes, buried good men,
felt your despair. My heart has not been torn by death--
of a child, a family, whole neighborhood.
I cannot tell you how to live,
whom to trust--or hate. But I can beg
for the lives of your children.
I weep for children everywhere: hungry,
afraid, alone. But especially for those we raise
to bomb themselves--and others.
There has to be another door that opens
into light, where everyone sits at the same
table, listening to children’s laughter.
Carol Aronoff's poetry has appeared in Comstock Review, Potpourri, Poetic Realm, Poetica, Mindprints, Dream Fantasy International, Beginnings, Hawaii Island Journal, In Our Own Words, Theater of the Mind, Animals in Poetry, From the Web, HeartLodge, Out of Line, Sendero, Buckle&, Iodine, Asphodel and Tiger 's Eye. She received a prize in the 1999/2000 Common Ground poetry contest, is a Pushcart Prize nominee. A chapbook, Cornsilk, was published by Indian Heritage Council in 2004. The Nature of Music was published by Pelican Pond in 2005. An expanded, illustrated Cornsilk was published by Pelican Pond in 2006.