Fearful Dream (With Cluster Bombs) Poem by Frank Bana

My ancestors left Odessa on the Black Sea shore
For England, the USA, Australia
They unfastened the commandments
From their doorposts when they left
They did not abandon the Mosaic precepts
For the sake of Zion.

One dark night, I was plunged into a dream:
Terrain transformed, landscapes on fire with fear
They fired on us, we fired on them
Our children hid in shelters
While their children fled

And when the UN ceasefire was signed
The children came to their villages again
And through my sorry dream they wandered, lost
Looking for their homes and schools
And water safe enough to boil
Crying, distraught, the girls and boys
Handled shiny metal toys
That seemed about to comfort them.

Cluster bombs, deployed again
To save a politician's face
To paint him as alert and strong
To create his reputation
As the warrior-king of a nation

While writers who lost sons reflect
On innocence and self-respect
His electors cry and then complain:
The actions were inadequately harsh
The army was not sent in from the start.

Awakening in fear, I must reflect
That strength is not security
Until it works for common good
With men deployed to win a peace for all.
And any nation, any child
As Chronicles and other books attest
Must swim its tide of history, like the rest.

Now should be our moment to reflect
Upon the laws and commentaries again
To learn to know the faces and the names
Of those who live across the borderlines
To waken from our fearful sorry dreams
Lest we too end up lost in history
Less loved and less remembered than
Marwa, Sekneh and Hassan.