I’m about to eat breakfast, but I feel guilty for the good life I wake to daily when so much of the world, removed from our shores, knows only war, destruction, death, and incalculable grief: Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine and Gaza. Still others.
I am moved by Palestinian-American poet and physician Fady Joudah’s recent poem about Gaza. The death toll, vastly civilian, now approaches 70,000.
Joudah has lost 100 members of his Gaza family. He has served as a volunteer with Doctors Without Borders.
Since his poem is under copyright, I can only share an excerpt:
“And out of nowhere…”
And out of nowhere a girl receives an ovation
from her rescuers, all men on their knees and bellies
clearing the man-made rubble with their bare hands, disfigured by dust into ghosts.
All disasters are natural including this one, because humans are natural.
The rescuers tell her she’s incredible, powerful,
and for a split second, before the weight of her family’s disappearance sinks her, she smiles,
like a child who lived for seven years above ground receiving praise.
PostScript:
Joudah is a winner of The Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and long listed for the National Book Award for Poetry (2024).
—rj
Brimmings: up from the well 