Fallen fruit

You lie there little ones frozen in timeless beauty still at play even when quick fear etched its anger on your faces. The rouge on your cheekbones is bright blood your eyes are still deep dark pools - but the darkness now is light gone. You were born to die. We were all born to die - On ne meurt qu'une fois; et c'est pour si longtemps! - but your death was coming soon; it was always there just at the door as you ran out into the square to play, death was also waiting for its game to turn its hoops through the dust chase bubbles of light and laughter through the still noon air. Death was waiting for your friends to join you as your mother shooed you out into the path and your friends came laughing and tripping out into the open spaces where death was waiting to play hide and seek in the afternoon. Your little bodies are graven grace. Even where hot metal has ripped away the epidermis, the dermis and exposed here the skull there a rib it cannot not disguise your beauty. Even where your faces are burned away there is still beauty behind the bone. Look it is there! The little check dress that was only a few shekels at the bazaar came all the way from China. (That's funny because china is a cup, a plate, a bowl.) The red satin ribbon is still there round your neck, and in your hair and bright red ribbons adorn your legs shining in the sunlight over Gaza. The denim shorts mama bought for you at the little stall still have room for you to grow into them. The sandal (one of a pair that cost more than a day's food) is still on your foot that turns the wrong way as you lie in the dust. A foot that just scored the winning goal in Rio. Hurrah! But we must find the missing sandal or mama will be cross. The air is still now, the smoke almost gone. Over the fields if you listen carefully there is the sound of other children playing on the wind that blows out of the east from Be-er Sheva. Your baby noses can smell the orange trees that bittersweet scent that now waits for the stench of death. The children look for fallen oranges and hide behind the trees as they throw half ripe fruit at their friends but always miss them because their friends are quick as children are and the trunks of the trees are thick with the sap that rises from our mother Earth. You can hear the other children playing in the orange trees for dead children can hear why else would their mothers weep so? You were born to die in the dusty soil of Gaza. You were freed from the agony of adulthood. Freed from the chains, the despair the hopelessness and the anger. Yours was the short sweet life that didn't understand the ways of men while we were waiting for you to explain it to us as older children always do. The wind has changed now and blows out of the south from Sinai. It covers the city in ash and soft fine dust from the desert. The desert moves slowly like a cat waking up in the sun and covers the land. In time it will cover Gaza and in time it will cover Palestine, even Haifa and Golan will know the soft caress of the desert as it kisses with the wind. Jordan is running dry. It will baptise few prophets in the years to come. It will run now and then when there are rains in Lebanon and Galilee when the water runs off Mount Hermon, and it will run red with blood again and again in other seasons to come. The last drop that reaches the Dead Sea will be met by the salt of a million tears that have flowed over this land and that are still to flow. Salt to salt. That must be how it should be or it would be otherwise. You will know nothing of this. Wrapped in white muslin wound tight around your tiny legs and arms you will wriggle and twist in the ground under the parks where you used to play. You will sleep that sleep that knows no more dishonour, pain, suffering and joy. Rest in peace. You have found that which still eludes us all. We will not know such peace for a very long time still to come. We are not the blessed, not yet. That gift was given to you in the roar of thunder and fire from the skies. Rest in peace little warriors, saints, soccer stars and mothers. Think of us if you think in death. Think of us kindly if you think at all. You will always be loved. I owe you 143 words. But there are no more words left for me to say. Can we count the spaces? Let us also count the spaces this time. One, two, three..... ready or not here I come.....