The Children of Gaza
They are not headlines,
not numbers
stacked in columns of loss.
They are children...
running with paper kites
stitched from the scraps of yesterday,
drawing suns with broken crayons
on walls that no longer stand.
Their laughter once rose
above the call to prayer,
a fragile hymn
against the roar of falling skies.
Now, quiet shows them before their time
how to carry grief in tiny palms,
how to tuck emptiness close
as though it had been cradled in their chest all along.
Yet—
in the rubble,
a doll without arms still wears a smile.
In the dust,
tiny feet trace games
on streets the world has forgotten.
Hope is stubborn.
It hides in their eyes
flickering like a candle
protected from the wind,
whispering to us
if we tune our hearts to
their quiet voice,
...that childhood
should be a garden,
not a graveyard of dreams.
Remember them.
Not as shadows of war
but as children who deserve
to wake beneath an unbroken sky.
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