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| Israeli soldiers will not face criminal prosecution for the death of an elderly Palestinian-American man who was stopped at a checkpoint, dragged from a car, bound and blindfolded and then left unresponsive on the ground overnight after apparently suffering a heart attack due to his rough treatment. —AlJazeera, June 14, 2023. Photo: Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank village of Qafin on May 30, 2023 [File: Majdi Mohammed/AP via AlJazeera] |
I am thinking of the role of the poet
is it to read through the morning news
and try on the horrors of people’s lives
like today reading again about
the 78year old American stopped
by IDF soldiers in the West Bank at night
during a “routine incursion” in the village
of Jiljilya since after the man was dragged
from his car for 200 meters he was gagged
his wrists bound was left face down for hours
in a cold warehouse with others called
“detainees” by the news report that said
after hours like that he was found dead
but his death could not be determined
to be caused “specifically” by anything
the soldiers had done after leaving him
which was their routine since he was also
Palestinian and so the case was closed
or is the job of the poet to imagine being
forced to cross the border into Belarus
or Mexico at gunpoint or watch again
the video of the Greek Coast Guard
rounding up asylum seekers, including
young children, then taking them to sea,
abandoning them on a raft. Or is the poet
called on to describe the patterns of leaves
as someone suggested to me without irony.
Bonnie Naradzay’s poems haver appeared in AGNI, New Letters, RHINO, Kenyon Review, Tampa Review, EPOCH, and many other sites. She was awarded the New Orleans MFA’s poetry prize: a month’s stay in the castle of Ezra Pound’s daughter Mary. For many years, Bonnie has led regular poetry sessions at shelters for the homeless and at a retirement center, all in Washington, D.C.
