Compassion

The attempts to describe
What is beyond description:
“Hell beyond imagination”
“Dystopic”
“Cannot be described in words”

The pictures that we see
Which show a sliver
Of one tragedy
Among thousands
Among tens of thousands
Are they not worth
A thousand words apiece?

All this goes to show that
Language itself has been
Maimed
Slaughtered
Delegitimised

Our very sense of compassion
Has been bludgeoned
To death:
Honestly, now
Do you feel sorry
For Palestine?
For any Palestinian?
Can you?

Each one of us
Needs to fight
This narrative-mongering
To recover, first
Our sense of compassion
Then, rage will follow
And language
And action

It is only compassion
One human being
To another
That can begin
To repudiate injustice
To save the situation
To free Palestine
To free Israel
To free the world
To free ourselves