ISRAEL HAS GONE MAD AGAIN!

SERIES: THE POETRY OF JOHN ODEY ADUMA (THE TREE BY THE RIVER)

As you run amok like a wounded lion

Bombarding Lebanon with your missiles

And US-made cluster bombs,

The world is asking, and posterity too is asking:

Is this disproportionate offensive

To avenge two of your soldiers

Captured by Hezbollah?

Or there is a hidden agenda you are pursuing

O Israel, judge for yourself if you still

Have a conscience as little

As a grain of mustard seed

As you go about pounding the soul of humanity,

Bombing Lebanon to shreds – maiming,

Killing innocent children and civilians

And returning to ashes the glory of Lebanon

Which took seasons to reconstruct

After your first devastation which pushed her

More than a century backwards.

Israel, judge for yourself and see;

Is it appropriate for the lion, king of the jungle,

To embark on such a gruesome duel with the soldier ant?

Israel, are you out for peace in the Middle East,

Or for a display of military power?

But what wisdom is there for the elephant, tetrarch of the jungle

To allow itself to be provoked to the point of destroying

The anthill which took the ants many years to build?

Israel, embarking on this needless aggression is descending too low.

Meanwhile, let all humanity cry out “disproportionate” from the roof tops,

Mountains, hill and valleys; for strength and military might are not

Measured by such unwarranted aggression and this purposeless malignity.

As you have continued to disregard all calls to the round table

For a ceasefire by taking undue advantage of the silent sentinel

And the withered cedar and fir trees of Lebanon, let Israel now speak to Israel.

But let Israel know that the blood of the innocent

Like the blood of Abel will forever cry to their Maker for a revenge.

August 1, 2006.