July 2014 Poem by Jacqui Thewless

From west to east, a baby beams

like sunlight in a wicker cot.
Grandmas fold hairless grandsons two days young

in the crooks of their bare arms;
grandfathers hold the spheres of their new heads
easily in their old palms,

smiling. From north to south,

an infant is playing in dust
with water and a stick.

A military man stops on the track: "did you see it? -
the red fox, caught in a wire trap".
Your grown-up daughters, sons,

graduate from school, at last:

all pals in their group, like them, gowned, capped, photographed.
In the middle of the world -

in little Palestine - light's snuffed out.
There is no one to carry. There is no one to hold.
There is no one to catch.