I Heard A Father Crying

I Heard A Father Crying

I have not cried or wept in too many years.

And that was for a child in Palestine.

On the radio... I heard a father crying...

Beit Hanoun... “Glass shards... A crib...” His tears...

And in my separate grief I felt his claim.

I listened to his disembodied voice.

I heard a grief that mine could barely frame.

A window on his world broke without choice.

I cannot choose to feel or not to feel.

Ones empathy will rise or it will not.

Without one touch humanity undone.

Damaged by a protective edge of steel,

“Never-Again” should mean none are forgot.

Why only in our pain can we be one?

Poem © john william brown 09 May 2016

Drawing © john william brown 12 May 2016