The man in the white shirt, black pants, and briefcase, the one who stepped in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square and just stood there. The girl in the long dress who slid a flower into the barrel of the gun the officer had trained on her. The woman who ended up becoming a second mother to the boy who murdered her own son. In the face of justifiable horror at Israeli and Palestinian deaths and unjustifiable antisemitism, these are the people I’m thinking about these days.

Little Prayer, by Danez Smith

let ruin end here

let him find honey
where there was once a slaughter

let him enter the lion’s cage
& find a field of lilacs

let this be the healing
& if not    let it be

For more information about the wondrous Danez Smith, please check out their website. Note that a version of this post first appeared in 2017.

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