Years
ago I realized Palestinians might see me as their
tormentor. It made me less afraid
of Germans, a fear I'd
carried around since childhood.
This
latest hell, a family feud. Semites. My people in
Israel, my cousins in Gaza. Hostages
to history.
"War
crimes" we cry as if war itself weren't a crime.
Clutching
my remote control I watch the rubble grow.
The
corpses piling up. Parents had written names on
their children's legs to identify
them for burial.
I'm
as deflated as an old helium balloon, my
neighbour
says, "chin up, you only go around once." Fuelled by
cellular memory we go around many times.
We
cover the mirror when we sit shiva because to see
our
grief would be unbearable. Then we look again to
be able to see ourselves in
the faces of others.
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Renee Rodin lives in Vancouver on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people. Her books include Bread and Salt (Talonbooks, 1996) and Subject to Change (Talonbooks, 2010) and the chapbook, Ready for Freddy (Nomados, 2005). She has writing in recent issues of The Capilano Review and Some Magazine. She is a mother and a grandmother.
