Look Up

The morning call to prayer drowns out the chatter, the children, the cockerels;

at least for a minute.

How many pleas will go unanswered today?

Five times the Adhan will ring out across the camp,

and they will come. Unwaveringly. Resolutely. Religiously.

Who are we to judge? Stuck here in the dust between two lands. Unwanted;

surrounded by enmity and apathy.

Where else can you look but up, when all your terrestrial options are spent?

When any solution is mired in the petty politics of race, religion and region

whilst we cling to our own part of this insignificant rock, speeding through space at 600 kilometres per second.

On the sprawling hilltop opposite, the sun glints off corrugated metal;

a shining beacon of inequality

in a world that could do better. In a world that hasn’t learned from the past;

where our “never again” became “never somewhere close”.

And where even that seems less achievable than ever. 

So, I too look up. And pick out the kites, flying high above the tents;

sticks and plastic bags

fashioned into toys by children forced early into resilience

but now playing with the innocence of my own kids:

three flights, two trains and seven thousand miles away.

“Fill your days with life, not your life with days” they say.

Why not both?

When one is not an option, they focus on what is achievable.

Conditioned to accept a reality none of us could accept for ourselves,

whilst we get ready to leave. Back to our comfortable lives. Until the next time.