Song for the Suffering

Tell me: Which is the safest room in which to hide in a burning house?

Song for the Suffering
 © Vincent Hostak
October 2023

I heard you say: “I refuse to take sides.”
Perhaps you meant: your heart is with the suffering.
It is a blister clinging to the wall,
this wall no prayers may penetrate
while all means of refuge are closed. 
Tell me:
Which is the safest room in which to hide in a burning house?

Peace should be deafening, we have thousands
of words to describe it, in our hundreds of tongues
holding still in our mouths, even in grief.
As the days dim to dusk
the heart-stopping thunder returns.
Tell me:
Why shouldn’t we bellow, what is the pain which injures us more?

I heard you say: “It can never be solved,”
perhaps you meant: “what I say will be twisted
by those given quarter in coveys of hate
whom I’ll only enrage.
If they die, may it be softly.”
Tell me:
While we still breath, shouldn’t care have the broadest place to land?

Image, Public Domain, View of Egypt, Gaza Strip and Israel taken during ISS Expedition 14