Poem for the Children of Gaza

The Children of Gaza . . .

Play soccer in the rubble between bombardments

Of their homes, schools, parks, hospitals—

Surgical strikes, of course,

Designed to surgically crush an entire block,

Entire generation, an entire People.

The children, who’ve known nothing but siege and war,

Their entire lives, try to ignore

The stench of death reeking from the neighboring apartment building

In spectacular ruins, not a stone on a stone:

                This is destruction on a biblical scale!

They hardly care who is right and who is wrong,

Wonder when this just war will end,

And they can get back to being kids,

Laughing, kicking a soccer ball on a pitch.

[Bob Coughlin / July 28, 2014]

5th Anniversary of the Cruel War

Today, March 19, 2008, marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War--with no end in sight. There have been news reports claiming that John McCain says we could stay in Iraq fighting for a hundred years. I remember when the news announced the invasion on March 19, 2003. As a longtime Catholic, I thought, "The tragedy of it--invading a country, starting a war on the Feast of St. Joseph." It was a slap in the face to Pope John Paul II, who begged Bush not to prosecute this war; worse, it was a slap in the face to Catholics and to all people who believe in war as the absolutely last resort (a basic tenet of Just War Theory).

Think of the costs of this war--in human lives and health, in treasure, and in moral authority. Bush and his cronies have undermined the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights; they have allowed and justified human torture; they have fought the first American preemptive war of choice (think of Pearl Harbor!); and they have spent an incredible amount of American treasure, estimated right now up to a half trillion dollars (that would be $500,000,000,000)--with no end in sight. A recent article in Vanity Fair says that a conservative estimate of the cost of this war is 3 trillion dollars! Bush did this without raising taxes, an action that was extraordinarily deceptive, and one that is fueling inflation and economic chaos.

This war has lasted longer than World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. When will it end? How will our Constitution, Bill of Rights, moral authority, and US treasure ever be restored? The lives lost, the lives in ruin!

Here's a poem for the occasion. Forgive the pre-Vatican II Latin:


"On the Feast of St. Joseph, 2008"

(The 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War)


Miserere, Domine, Miserere Nobis

Spare us O Lord though
We hardly deserve your mercy.

My soul is the gloom sky, the bitter
Rain the long hunger of March.

The crucifixion clouds our minds
The scourging the mocking
The crowning with bitter
Thorns

The death, the blood, white charnel house of bone
Smithereens, Our soul our country!

Parce Domine, Parce Populo Tuo!
Spare, O lord, spare your people

Bring us to peace
Though we hardly deserve it.

Miserere, Domine, Miserere Nobis.

(Robert M. Coughlin
March 19, 2008)