An American Jew Speaks With a Ceaseless Witness

I am a dizzy man trapped in a tilt-a-whirl,
a compass in an iron mine.

The North Star offers help. It says
it never sets on Gaza. Or here.

You just can’t see me in the daylight, it says,
but I see you spinning—

and the hollow bones of famine there.
And you are right, the star says. Gaza

is not yours to dream,
and your imagination failed when

you couldn’t foresee mother’s milk gone dry,
the streets strewed with the spent flesh

of poets and teachers and sitties—
and an age-mate of your grandchild Re Re.

Do you recall when Re came from playing
and panted “I’m starving”? That’s when

you knew: Her plump cheeks
and un-shattered bones are just

how the Earth turns. And by that I mean:
You know who feeds the grist to the stones

and who is ground to dust,
who crooks the wheel and who is crushed.

The best time, the North Star says, to take
your hand off the crank was yesterday.

The second best is today.

–

Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio. He is winner of the 2023 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, and a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. His poems have appeared Whale Road Review, Abandon Journal, and Innisfree, among others.

In fiery speech to Congress, Netanyahu vows ‘total victory’ in Gaza and denounces US protesters
[AP News]