Sleeping Now Silent Now[1]
Jan M. Osborn, Chapman University
To begin or to end
at the beginning to cease
How can a beginning negate an ending
This starless and bible-black destruction
this mourning
this hellfire licking at the heels of a people
at the heels of children
scorching this occupied territory
To begin with roots tangled
at the beginning in ancient soil
Each beginning a call for an ending
the enforced flight or that attack
the seeking refuge its brutality
indignities of occupation beginning of retaliation
You, alone, can hear the hushed towns breathing
You know the weapons genesis, the source
Your eyes unclosed to the black and folded towns
Are you who called for an end to this Gazian ending
In a lulled and dumbfound town now
sleeping now the noise hushed
bombs continue to fall revenge continues its cycle
no babies sleeping in Gaza, no youth dreaming, without dreams
the farmers, the fishers, the teachers, the soldiers
the buildings fall rubble piles to the sky
the bodies the genocide
No babies sleeping in Gaza
Streaking and needling the bombs fall on the roofs
Hear the pain, the terror, those left with their hushed breathing
and you alone could cry out did cry out for a while
sleeping now silent now
the heat of summer sucking the air from your lungs
the tents from your squares, the rage against your machine
sleeping now a night without end
a night without dreams a night of vengeance
No olive branch while you sleep, while you dream
dead dreams weep and while you sleep the soil bleeds
You can hear the children crying from where you are
you can hear the dead dreams weeping while you sleep
Slow black crow black capitalizing on death
The people of the lulled towns sleeping
The destruction fast and slow
Death a night moving in the streets
the processional of bodies
the smoke of strikes an oily vapor
from where you are
you can hear the cries in the moonless night
slow black crow black oozing in your veins
And the bells of the towers shall ring
not for weddings but for death
who’s dead who’s dying
under the olive trees roots tangled with death
No love sings this spring this summer
only you can hear and see
the mazes and dismays
and despairs from where you sit at the seat of power
you can hear their dreams
don’t let them die with empire’s wealth
Don’t forget they were ever born
A ceremonial dusk cannot will you to sleep
All dead day long
There is no singing in the cold earth
Under olive making wood
No sermons on the innocence of humanity
[1] Ah, Dylan Thomas.
Jan M. Osborn is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Chapman University where she teaches, for now, in Rhetoric & Composition Studies.
