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The sky over Gaza By Peter Ewart
The phosphorus shell explodes high, so high, over homes and buildings jammed together. Crates on a dock. Cages stacked in a warehouse. Strangely beautiful. Strangely metaphorical. Roman candles fizzing as on a Mediterranean holiday? A ghostly flower, pale thin leaves unfurling slowly downwards? A Portuguese man-o-war, stinging tentacles trailing over an ancient sea? Flecks of smoldering confetti falling, the rumble of orchestras in the distance? They say white phosphorus has a special love for flesh. Like gum to a sole. Sweat to the skin. Screams to a mouth. It kisses so deeply. Searing cornea. Scorching lung. Charring bone. Does not matter - uniformed or not, man, woman, child. It covets them all. And it will love them forever. But really, there is no metaphor over the Gaza sky, no beauty, no grace, not even a poem. How can there be? Just another low and dirty war crime. By a low and dirty occupier. | |
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Peter Ewart is a writer, instructor and community activist based in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. He can be contacted at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca | |
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