I have not cried or wept in too many years.
And that was for a child in Palestine.
On the radio... I heard a father crying... 
Beit Hanoun... “Glass shards... A crib...” His tears...
 
And in my separate grief I felt his claim.
I listened to his disembodied voice.
I heard a grief that mine could barely frame.
A window on his world broke without choice.
 
I cannot choose to feel or not to feel.
Ones empathy will rise or it will not.
Without one touch humanity undone.
 
Damaged by a protective edge of steel, 
“Never-Again” should mean none are forgot.
Why only in our pain can we be one?
 
 
Poem © john william brown 09 May 2016 
Drawing © john william brown 12 May 2016 

Charity for Peace in the Middle East