Ghazal with Coyotes, Gaza and Healing Herbs
Pamela Uschuk
“My eyes went to heaven instead of me.”
—five year old boy in Gaza, PBS NEWS, January 2025
Desert wind razors oleander leaves, scraping dawn’s yard.
My pup attacks coyotes through chain-link fence to the East.
Radio cries for children bombed each day in Gaza’s rubble.
Love-starved, rain refuses to kiss wildfires to the East.
What is chickpea flour to dead mothers wrapped in white sheets?
My shoes catch fire. I would send rivers of milk to the East.
On my sill, basil & healing herbs flex from East to West.
Finches and mourning doves sing up sun to the East.
A rabidcoyote bit three neighbor dogs across town.
During chemo, my friend sent dates sweet dried from the East
.
Neighbor kids dribble, shoot baskets on asphalt,
shoes laced to laughing feet, tap love notes to the East.
Revenge rape is no quotient to solve torn burkas.
Indentured slave, my migrant grandma prayed to the East.
My ancestors were massacred by a tyrant’s troops.
I am their contrail sending love poems to the East.
For years I believed my alien name meant big ears.
migrating to Belarus from Siberia far East.
Uschuk means whale who spirals down to evade enemies.
I’d curl in a blue whale’s singing brain to the East.
Where is God when bodies are blown to bone confetti?
What herb heals daughters & sons exploded in the East?
When Ami Kaye, publisher of Glass Lyre Press, solicited poems for an anthology of Ghazals, I was determined to write one. Before this ghazal, published by Ami Kaye in Nur Melange Anthology of Ghazals, my earlier ghazals seemed wooden, forced. But, this ghazal was an axe that opened my heart broken by daily images of Israel’s incessant bombing of Gaza, by its genocide of Gazan citizens, especially its women and children. I wanted to write a ghazal to honor the dead civilians of this hideously beseiged nation. This was a breakthrough Ghazal for me. I haven’t yet mastered this elegant Persian form, but I am happy with this poem.
PAMELA USCHUK is the author of eight books of poems and has received many awards including the American Book Award. She is a senior fellow and board member of Black Earth Institute, as well as Editor in Chief of Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts. www.pamelauschuk.com