Palestine refugees enforced to flee Hamad quarter in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, after receiving an evacuation warning from Israeli army. Commons image.
by Jim Aitken
MacCaig compared one to a damaged insect.
I heard mine long before I saw it.
And I saw the heads of little children
with their parents pointing to the sky,
the children’s eyes full of wonder.
The day was bright and the sky clear
like a gigantic sheet of blue paper,
and I looked upwards and saw it too;
the strange shape and the repetitive sound
of rotating blades; the bumble bee buzz
magnified a million times.
All the faces were happy ones. The object
overhead a welcome interruption
for the shoppers, the walkers and the tourists.
And then it struck me as I looked away
how reactions to this knowing sound,
or to the sound of burring drones,
would be met with parents and their children
in Gaza, the West Bank or in Yemen
where wonder long ago gave way to horror.
