Gaza

Gaza, January 18, 2009

Norbert Ruebsaat


A word is a thing that we have against death.
It is only a word:
It is as simple as a feather.

I hold it up:
Here is the word, I say.

My enemy holds his child against his body
For protection.
He shoots: who falls?

Name me not as your killer,
Says the word.
I am that which you have
Against death.





Name
The silence of weapons,
The sound that follows a gunshot:
Who are you?
Asks this silence.

Describe your exact features.
Describe the country you come from,
The names its lips have re-
Collected.
Describe your worth.

When you cannot speak,
When silence holds you,
When all of you aches
Like a lost arm,
When you curse your birth,
And your mother, long dead,
Has forgotten your skin, 
What is left of you?

When you crouch in the space
Behind your teeth,
Give yourself a name.
Urge forward,
Dream it.




A country that failed.
Its inhabitants flee.
Where they then were 
Is not.
You are facing into a wind,
Your thoughts inhabit
Phases of you
That whip by.

Turn, and you remember
An equation, something 
Someone said. Once.
No longer a miracle.

The country that failed
Walks away from its inhabitants
Like a seaman,
And loneliness invents
New rules.
   
You are within earshot.

for HC.