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| For their first event of the year, J Street Swarthmore gathered with other student organizations for a vigil in memory of the Israelis and Palestinians who lost their lives this summer. Image and caption from J Street on FaceBook, September 6, 2014. |
i.m. Daniel Tragerman
A distant recurrence
brings death to the door;
hollow, the victory,
made brutal by war.
With darkness descending
and cars rushing past
I pedal, ascending,
as images flash
chiaroscuro through trees
now fading to gray;
there's one that remains
at the end of the day --
His soul will be borne
in a scrapbook of hope;
a mother will mourn,
sustaining the trope.
Chickatawbut Hill looms;
I'm going for broke.
Author’s note: This poem came while biking through the Blue Hills in Milton, MA at dusk, shortly after reading the story of the death of Daniel Tragerman, the 4-year-old Israeli boy who was killed in his home on August 22 by shrapnel from a mortar shell fired from Gaza.
Tracey Gratch lives in Quincy, MA with her husband and their four children. Her poems have appeared in various and sundry publications including, Mezzo Cammin, The Literary Bohemian, The Flea, Annals of Internal Medicine, Boston Literary Magazine, The New Verse News and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. Her poem, "Strong Woman" is included in the American College of Physicians, On Being A Doctor, Volume 4.