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Burying Our Dead
Burying our Dead,
A poem about Peace
by Leslie Goldman
Your Enchanted Gardener
Date: 6/4/2005 10:26:11 AM ( 20 y ) ... viewed 949 times Subject:Burying Our Dead
I go meatless most of the time.
Occasionally, a Rocky Organic Chicken Dog
slips down the gullet
in honor of childhood's favorite foods Mom made.
Rare meat I buy, even the 22% hamburger
intended to eat raw, ends up going into the
freezer to be dealt in the Eternal Hereafter.
Down the street, not too far away,
is a friend who I have not visited in years.
He treats me with utmost respect.
His name is Hani. He is Arab.
He speaks better Hebrew than I do.
He was born in Bethlehem, a city
noted for its other Star.
Hani's kindness
and respect for all humanity
is clear from the wide clientele
who come into Near East Foods
in various traditional garbs to buy his very,
very,fresh Lamb in all its body parts.
Women whose face I cannot see:
Men who speak languages I do not understand;
Dark skinned and happy children who wonder
why I walk the way I do--
all these shop at Hani’s
among the bagged basmati rice
and familar labeled herbs and seeds I know by
fragrance but cannot decipher by foreign label.
Hani's children are grown now.
His son is no doubt a basketball star
for some local high school,
but the moment I enter his store,
Hani will remember
me by name and wonder about
the distant travels that have kept us apart.
Today we are both in thoughts of war
but neither of us imagines that somebody very,very
different has volunteered to be our enemy.
A few men who maybe never got
suckled enough decide events that will influence
the lives of all us shopping here.
I know if I call Hani and
ask for a delivery of the Lamb he will bring it.
We will sit and talk.
We will wonder about the influence
of grown men who behave as fighting boys,live in White Houses
and ask we bury our dead.
We will know without saying
that his dead and my dead
will be the same dead.
Something inside wants to see my dear friend Hani.
Something in me is calling out for the Lamb.
Leslie Goldman
nine days after GETTING HIP 2
January 24, 2003
7:31 AM
Photo of Hani and Me
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=92&i=258
___
from my Getting Hip Web site:
More writings and poems here
for those hurting or going into Surgery:
http://lesliegoldman.com/GettingHip.html
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