Israel overshadows peace everywhere

Yesterday was perfect weather, walking Vegger through the woods, pottering in the garden; but all the time overshadowed by what is happening in Gaza. It reminded me of the time when the Bush/Blair Iraq war started.



A Wood in Somerset, Iraq


Stone still    in opalescent air
trees wait supportively.

Light   splinters on new leaves.

Sun for the seventh day
blesses an English spring.

Two thousand lives away
this anticyclone fires up a storm
that drowns a nightmare world
in ochre light.

The peace I feel
leaning against the powerful fist
that grips the earth, cushioned with moss,
back shaped, kind as an elephant,

finds its reflection in a furious world
of men who sleep-walk,
fall on their mother's skin,
give screaming fire,
act and react,
but cannot take it in.

While birdsong fills my head,
sharp as the sunlight
sparking on those tiny points of green.

One hammer headed woodpecker,
knowing no better and no worse,
fires off his rounds.

I should be suffering,
but the world is folded at my side,
its front page images of death
have left off stirring
in this gentle air.

© Richard Lawson
27.3.03