by Bruce Black
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| GIF by Glen Le Lievre |
It’s the stories that you don’t read
in the news that break your heart.
The old dog who can’t make it to the safe room
in the one minute you have to get downstairs.
The young children who blow out the candles on their
birthday cakes in the darkness of bomb shelters.
The couples whose weddings are held as missiles explode
overhead, bride and groom weeping in joy and sadness.
Life, I’m told, goes on in wartime but the war
changes the way you live your life.
Love still exists but hides in the bomb shelter
with you in order to survive.
Kindness still exists but stays out of sight
while the missiles are falling.
Hope huddles under an overpass or in the shelter of underground
stations where it can breathe and show itself again.
How do you survive a war without losing the ability to love,
to show others kindness, to safeguard and preserve one’s humanity?
Even when you live miles away from the war zone
and can’t hear the bombs exploding.
Even when you can only read about them or watch them fall
on the news or in your Facebook feed.
How do you hold onto faith
in the goodness of people?
How do you trust in kindness and love
to prevail?
How do you hope and believe—in spite of the bleakness
of the present moment—in a better future?
In a future without war? In a future of peace?
How do you survive a war?
Bruce Black received his MFA from Vermont College. He is the author of Writing Yoga (Shambhala) and editorial director of The Jewish Writing Project. His poetry, personal essays, and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The MidAtlantic Review, The Amethyst Review, Write-Haus, Bearings, Super Poetry Highway, Poetica, The Lehrhaus, Soul-Lit, and elsewhere. He lives in Highland Park, IL.
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