Image by Alan McGuire
By Maria Trbojevic
Close your eyes now, child of Palestine.
Tonight whilst you sleep beneath the fingers of tracer fire that crisscross the night sky probing and searching for your frightened flesh, in makeshift beds in shanty-town tents in shanty-town refugee camps, the world will turn.
The world will make a revolution around the sun and turn its back for the last time on the old ways of old men who have reigned for far too long, and burdened your innocent hearts with the dark song of war.
And in the new sun, their faces will turn into gargoyles of aggression where they will remain trapped inside their own bitter and twisted prison, forever.
And tomorrow when you wake, rub the sleep from your eyes, raise your head to the sky and you will see hands coming out of the clouds, not drones but hands from all sides of the divide, east and west and north and south, hands coming together in unity and peace, not hurling grenades, not curled into fists, hands without gloves naked and open bearing their palms like cushions to the spearheads of rockets. And like a magic trick, the rockets will disappear into thin air never to be seen again.
And in between the dot-to-dot of bullets that everyday constellate your sky, the hands will snatch them out of the air and turn them into bubbles, thousands of bubbles all shiny pink and green and blue. And if you look closely you’ll see each one bears the smile of an innocent life taken. And they’ll float down and land on the lips of the preachers of war and hate and turn their evil words into snowflakes, and they’ll melt away never to be heard again.
And then many hands of every colour will come together and build a bridge from one side of division to the other brick by brick, and they won’t tire, because they aspire to something higher.
No longer will incendiary bombs light your fire, another flame bigger and brighter will light the way to your future…the way of love….
So close your eyes now, child of Palestine, make dreams your gentle pillow. Tonight the world will turn.
The world will make a revolution around the sun and bring you a new day tomorrow when you will wake up, rub the sleep from your eyes and watch the hands come together across the sky in peace.
Salaam. Shalom.
Goodnight.
