25/11/2023
At the Thanksgiving table
during the newest war
people think it’s important
to know how they feel just now
so they take sides—Gaza, Israel
which, underneath any formal
feeling or knowledge of history
feels like one side is children
and one side is adults.
One for living and one
for the dead.
In the documentary made up
entirely of four children
living without adults in Gaza
surviving their every next terror
of violence, one boy, around 12?
turns and faces the camera
and says,
“We grow vegetables.
We do not grow bombs,
so they don’t have any
reason to come bomb us.”
Such a childish thing to say
a war will tell you
about the children of war.
The difficulty that comes
with peace is its power of
non-equivalence.
At the Thanksgiving table
the sides for the living
and the dead switch places
some times, some years,
depending on the war,
or whatever they’re calling a war
that year.
One year, the machine that makes
soldiers called it DESERT STORM
like an action movie.
Once you are on the side
of the living,
you stay with the living
which is ambiguous because
of the words we use to describe
any inherent madness.
We say, casualties,
for example, knowing there
is nothing casual about
dying in a war.
At the Thanksgiving table
I usually take the side
of the dead,
or the children—the side hidden
from history—the side
of love and loving
unstoppable wonder.
Children.
Because they lived
during a war which made
living feel formal.
Just to live one day more
which is different than
the way we live now.
Casual, along with the casualties.
