(written after waking up to the news of an inhabited building being targeted by F16 bombs in the same town of Qana - South Lebanon - during the 34 day war that took place in Lebanon. Qana was a target of massacre by the same forces 10 years ago as well...)
Little girl,
What were you dreaming of
When the roar of the aircrafts awoke you?
What did you feel when the birds of prey,
Ready for the kill, hovered above?
Did you feel the danger
Of what was to happen?
Did you turn to your mother for protection?
Or did she run to shield you
From the death that awaited you both?
Surrendering to her fate,
Did she whisper smiling
"Don't be scared, we'll finally be free"?
Or did she scream her lungs out
Her voice lost in the sound of the flare?
What was your last thought,
Little girl,
When the bomb fell?
Did you have time to look to heaven
When on your body the walls crashed?
What was your mother's last memory
When her life flashed before her eyes?
Was it the remembrance of a happy day?
Or her newborn son's splattered head
Ten years before, on such a cursed day?
Little girl from the rubbles
I know you were terrified
You didn't die sleeping and unawares;
You were terrified, sitting with your knees
Up to your chest, your arms holding on to them,
Because when they removed you from under the ruins,
Your body wasn't limp, it was all tensed up
To the tip of your curling toes
So was your mother's
My little girl from the rubbles
You weren't dreaming
You weren't screaming
You were praying...
Does your soul feel the touch of my tears,
Little girl of barely ten years?
