Poem: I Confess I Do Not Understand the Mind That Needs to Cause This Suffering

 I Confess I Do  Not Understand the Mind That Needs to Cause This Suffering

©2013 by Alice Walker

For Nurit Peled who sent me the photograph:  Palestinians Going to Work – Morning Routine 

I confess
I do not understand the mind 
That needs to cause this: Palestinian workers 
herded like cattle
In a long line
To their places of ill paid
Employment.

How happy can you make yourself
by
Causing this suffering?

How long can you sleep
As morning comes
And you pretend they are not
Trudging
Your way?

Withstanding insults
So many to a mile.

Cold

Hungry

Unimaginably poor.
 
Nauseated
From grief
And fear
But trudging desperately
Onward.

For the people
For the kids
For the pride of being
Who they are now and were before.

Never stopping.
Trudging onward:
Toward the frigid
Welcome
of your back door.

photo by Shmulik Kidron (source: facebook)