Poetry

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Kites

by Michael McQuillan
kites
Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

Kites

Grieving Gaza fathers fling kids’

paper kites on fires as Israel’s armed

force shoots down what stray winds

blow past yellow lines

Salty tears drown fleeting joy for

distraught tented children. Their

anguished cries could move a stone

but not a passive world immune

to persecuted activists and artists

shouting truths at covered ears

from lies that passing time makes

crystal clear

as to killings of aid workers serving,

journalists exposing, five-year-old

Hind Rajab’s pleading on a cellphone

amidst the bodies of the dead

for a Red Crescent rescue as the

Israeli tank that murdered her four

siblings with the parents

also slaughters her

I tremble from the loneliness of

knowing that pervasive “Israel

Right or Wrong” beliefs abound

in temples

at this sacred time when we repent

and make amends for sins and yet

profane the holy prayer

As once airborne string and tissue

playthings snap and crackle in fires

ending innocence for children without

warming hearts and souls

About the Author

Michael McQuillan

Michael McQuillan, a Massachusetts social justice writer, is a thirty-year Jewish convert. Experience as a US Senate legislative aide and Peace Corps Volunteer honored by the ADL’s “A World of Difference” diversity program and the Brooklyn Council of Churches, as the Brooklyn Borough President’s race and ethnic relations adviser coordinating the Crown Heights Coalition and chairing the NYPD Training Advisory Council’s Race Subcommittee in the aftermath of the Eric Garner killing inform his perspectives. Working as a volunteer, Mike hosted and produced public radio WFUV-FM’s Unity Forum. He served in the CHIPS Food Pantry, joined in post-Hurricane Katrina flood rebuilding in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, researched the Sandinista Literacy Campaign in Nicaragua, and was a founding member of the Hope in the Cities National Network. Leaders High School’s inaugural Lifetime Core Values Award marked his retirement from nineteen years of teaching history in Brooklyn. The Write Launch, The Ravens Perch, The History News Network, Harlem World Magazine, Tikkun, The Insider, The Chronicle of Philanthropy of North Carolina and The Covid Rebels 21 Poets Anthology have published his poems, reporting and Creative Nonfiction.