nothing new, nothing to see,
just another mound of rubble
and still the dogs zig and
zag over the cold stones,
their handlers holding tight,
awaiting a pause and deeper
inhalation
now the rescuers kneel
removing stone by careful stone,
the veil of destruction lifted from
the face of a girl
awake, blinking, inert,
four days entombed
but alive, alive oh!
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH,
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH
(he sang of things
above and below,
the eternal fusion,
the fast and slow)
(the recurrent broken hallelujahs)
a man lifts her,
this perhaps 4-year-old,
the christ child in swaddling clothes
suffering the sins of the world
lord forgive them, for they know not what they do
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH,
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH
he scans the cratered street,
the search now for a car and
swift transport to the hospital
and the announcer, camera crew
providing witness to this atrocity
intones:
it’s a rush to get her to hospi...
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