One Year On Poem by Chen-ou Liu

A 4-tanka sequence about the Israel-Hamas War

this silent scene
spins in a mother's mind
like a kaleidoscope:
smashed blood-stained photo frames
cover lifeless kibbutz children

shrapnel wounds
on the faces of Gazan kids
who look for mothers...
another US-made bomb falls
to finish all that remains

an old man
crying out, 'where should we go? '
the Heavens blocked
by a swarm of fighter jets
and the fire-smoke of Death

this endless loop:
October 7, October 7....
[and yet
the decades before
and the day after...] bloodshedding