Gods Play Dice With Gaza Poem by Uma nair

GODS PLAY DICE IN GAZA


The raining of fire
Opened the lyre
Of the endless dirge
Distilling a distinct urge
As sleeping huts morphed
Into a serpentine sky flamed
In dervish darkness
Conjuring a sordid sadness

And Babies in cradles turned
And Bullets incessantly burned
The patina of innocent tints
Into a grieved mother’s torments
Historiography was woven in quilts
Veiled within a black sun’s glints
As missiles explored to extinguish
Human ambition for anguish

When peace is a measure
A grave is an elegiac treasure
Truths lie buried elsewhere
Carrion corpses everywhere
The stained soil and pouring rain
Hides the siege in vain
Fairytales furl the vision
Of flames on the horizon

A youth’s notion of spring
Turns into winter’s sting
A still life in the face of hunger
Mirrored in the mosaic of fire
Is it the web of lies
Or the fragmented fascist’s wiles ?
As gory gods in absentia
Play dice with Gaza.