Wednesday, February 2, 2005

How The Eyes See

 

I

A documentary about life in a

City far enough away to be like

A foreign planet, shows a boy’s

Sweet innocent face.

Speaking with defiant confidence he spits,

I want to be a martyr,

To go smiling, like the brothers

I’ve seen go before me,

Strapped up to his neck with enough

Mass destruction to get him where he’d

Been told he’d go,

He searched for infidels,

Saw children instead.

No words admonished - but

Looking through his own orphaned

Eyes, seeing children

Stopped him…

Soldiers and video -taping pedestrians

Watched him fall to his knees

Pleading to surrender.

II

How hard it must be

To live in the skin

Of a boy born into a world

Where the temptation of

Immortal grace’s promise

Is more seductive than a

Mind altering chemical;

Stopped him…

How easy it must be

To love the seduction

On the other side of reason,

To not think about

Loving another human body,

Or the soul sold.

Stopped him?

Seeing more lost children

Through his own orphaned eyes

Reminded him of what it was like

To be left alone and afraid

One too many times,

Stopped him?

Now hidden way

Behind the fences where

The enemy sleeps,

The boy no longer

Dreams of dying

But of living as a man,

Praying,

Allah is still smiling on him.

1/30/05

Linda Joy Burke

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