The blind lead the blinded
along broken streets of what is left.
Some say this is new territory.
Others say it is the same old,
same old fight over territory again.
Bombs drop. Tears. It rains for days.
A young girl (maybe Palestinian,
maybe Israeli) tells all about
having lost her one good eye.
Half of her worries. The other
hardly knows which way
out of a cornered eye to turn.
She reports seeing
a burst of bent and bruised light.
A rainbow in the damaged sky.
The color of blood and battle cries
pour grief down on all of us
in this most recent endless war.
The young girl looks back again
at what once was. Don’t blink
she says, or you will miss the rainbow.
There, heaped on top of the rubble,
the remains of a handmade road sign
say: Stop. This is the wrong way.
2024 © Celia Lang
Celia Lang has lived in and around Northampton, Massachusetts since 1984. A poet and prose writer, she is cofounder and program organizer of Lesbians WriteOn™ weekly Zoom programming featuring open mics, workshops, and performances. She is working on her first full length book of poetry.