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| A relative of Samer Huhu, who was killed in a twin bombing attack that rocked a busy shopping street in the area of Burj al-Barajneh, waves his portrait as she mourns during his funeral in the southern suburb of the capital Beirut on November 13, 2015. Lebanon mourned 44 people killed in south Beirut in a twin bombing claimed by the Islamic State group, the bloodiest such attack in years, the Red Cross also said at least 239 people were also wounded, several in critical condition. —JOSEPH EID/GETTY IMAGES via TheWorldPost, Nov. 16, 2015 |
all afternoon I defined massacre shambles abbatoir
then resorted to the binary
the they did we did the done to will do
the right the wrong the dark the light the lash the gun the bomb
contracted to one straight line:
fear to rage to hate to kill to make a them that isn't me.
but by the night I was reminded
of the spaciousness
of the unclosed curve
of the infinite horizon
May we live with uncovered hearts
May that which binds our hearts be dissolved
into the widest possible compass of us
Author’s note: Thanks to John Travis for the lovingkindness meditation.
Leslie Prosterman, author of the book Snapshots and Dances (Garden District Press, 2011) and other poems in various journals and collections, recently collaborated with composer Charley Gerard to set her poem FluteBone Song to music, now out on CD (Songs of Love and Passion). A former academic, she is also a sometime student of trapeze.