"What We Say When We Say Ceasefire"

A poem

“What We Say When We Say Ceasefire” by Becky Bullard

Not one more bloodied faerie face
or hunger-sunken crease.

Make every acre safe at last
from sudden bomb-blast scree.

Let loose cries of relief, we plead.
Arise! oh dove of peace.

Hollow vows make wary ears
—end the farce of vapor deals.

Words of care may flow with ease,
but limbless cries have yet to cease.

These huddled masses, too, yearn to breathe free.
Black and white as a keffiyeh scarf their claim to Liberty

—that Lady turning green now, queasy,
bears witness from the shore of her safer sea.

Fire lit by fear spreading an indiscriminate sear…
Do 10,000 extinguished children not cover the fee?

“Not genocide,” they tell us, 
forgetting we can see.

After Martha Silano

Author’s Note
All the italicized words are anagrams of “ceasefire,” so when we say “ceasefire” we say these words, too. Thank you to Maggie Smith for this morning’s writing prompt that was inspired by Martha Silano’s magnificent anagram-based poem, “When I Learn Catastrophically.” I rarely write poetry but was grateful for this prompt at a moment when I didn’t know where else to put my grief, anger, and disappointment over the treatment of Palestinian American voices at the DNC this week. With reference, also, to “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus.