The Wall
By Phoebe Hoss
February, 2006
Haunting: that wall five
times a child's height, nearly
three times a man's – that wall
built for "security”,
built by a people whose ancestors once
secured themselves via
an invisible wall, one
within, to guard against the lure
of Baal and Moloch and their like.
Now children are idly
fed to Moloch as their shadows dip
and rise along a wall built where
fragrant orchards – orange and lemon,
fig, the peaceful olive – once bloomed
and bore. |
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Haunting: the penitentiary
wall its crown
of thorns breeding not
repentance but hate; the wall
embracing that little
town where once, we’re
told, love was born; whose shops
now abound with "Jesus dolls”,
each unbarbed wire
halo gleaming with unavailing
grace. |
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Haunting: the wall
dividing the land into
no man's, no woman's, and no
child's; the wall whose six-pointed
star has become a rack
on which are torn its own people
as its neighbors. |
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Haunting the wall the prophets
would have railed against is the
"good" one, the fence that casts no
shadow, that you can see
through, through which you still can hear a still
small voice. |
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