Birds and Dogs. {poem}

Photo by Chanan Greenblatt on Unsplash

I face the bathroom mirror…

I face the bathroom mirror
Standing silent
Listening to the sounds outside my window.
Birds chirping, dogs barking
Breaking through the peace
That hangs heavy in the summer air.

Meanwhile, somewhere far away
On the other side of the world
Bombs are dropping.
Someone like me faces her bathroom mirror
As explosions shatter the peace
Outside her window.

She will scream
And grab her children
And run.

Meanwhile, 
I twist my hair into ringlets
Wondering what if
Instead of lazy summer sounds
I heard bombs 
Exploding outside my window?

I try to imagine the horror
But I cannot.

I can imagine wild horses' hooves
Pounding over dry mud.

I can imagine the roar of a great dying tree
Split open by the wind.

I can imagine the cry of the eaglet in the nest
Unable to fly, falling to his death.

I can imagine many things 
I’ve never heard or seen.

But I can’t imagine 
The horror
Of the bombs.

You may say I can’t imagine it
Because it’s never happened to me. 

But maybe I can't imagine it
Because it's something that should never be.

How fortunate I am, I think,
To hear only birds and dogs.

*


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