Did we ask our children?

Did we ask our children if they wanted to be bombed or be maimed?

Before hatred possessed us, and we set our sights and aimed,
We took them for granted, when we built our arsenal under their homes,
And transformed them into rubble, parroting our thoughts in moralistic tones,
Tones so loud, it subdued their howling, their piercing screams,
We brandished our weapons, our armour, taking pride in our killing teams,
All that mattered was how we justified our struggle and our war,
Each child, that died, did not matter, like the offspring of a despicable whore,
Why that drama of carrying infants in our arms and rushing for their care?
When our brothers fomented terror, usurped land, did we say, “Don’t you dare!”
Our blood-thirsty minds saw them as nothing but as inconsequential fools,
“Collateral damage”, “Be warned, we had said” and they became our tools,
In a conflict with no end in sight and neither a sense of fulfilment,
All because we thought our children could do nothing for peace and contentment.

(A lament written in memory of the children who were killed and maimed in the July/August 2014 Israeli-Hamas War)

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya