Cross the Sea by Naomi Shihab Nye
A girl in Gaza
Speaks into a table microphone:
Do you believe in infinity?
If so, what does it look like to you?
Not like a wall
Not like a soldier with a gun
Not like a ruined house
Bombed out of being
Not like concrete wreckage
Of a school’s good hope
A clinics best dream
In fact not like anything
Imposed upon you and your family
Thus far
In your precious thirteen years.
Infinity would be
The never-ending light
You deserve
Every road opening up in front of you.
Soberly she nods her head.
In our time voices cross the sea
Easily
But sense is still difficult to come by.
Next girl’s question:
Were you ever shy?
Artwork:
Remembrance by Laurry Legarde
The Raising of Lazarus by Carl Heinrich Bloch