CHRIST IN FALLUJAH: Remembrance Sunday 2004 ©

He moves between the sunlight and the shadows,
Staffed but stumbling down the shattered street.
His way is marked by traces in the sand:
the dark stains placed there by His wounded feet.

A pale track left upon His dusty cheek
Marks sweat or tears, impossible to say.
Flickering in and out of time and space
Gingerly He steps and makes his way.

A mother in a cluttered, doorless, doorway
Hugs tightly with her one still useful arm
Her infant daughter's small and stiffened corpse
Still, to the last, protecting it from harm.

He stops and kneels down in the rubble,
gazes with love into her dimming eyes.
She sees within them as her earthly vision fades
The opening gates of Mahmud's Paradise.

Above, the marshalled ghosts of honoured dead
Hang down their heads in silence and in shame
That all they died for has drowned in the mire
Of greed and power that's set the world aflame.