written on the occasion of Trump dropping the so-called “Mother of All Bombs” on Afghanistan
Sure, some of us have never seen war,
but we're still bitter.
Our country is still bombing.
Our country that says we get to decide.
We’ve never wanted to bomb
countries we’ve never seen
but hear are full of
people. Our country doesn’t want us to see
their bodies or their anguish or even
the beauty of their countryside.
Most of us have never met anyone from
Afghanistan unless you count the American vets
who told me,
“No, it’s not made of rubble, it’s the most
beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
So we decided again no more bombs, but see?
The mother.
I am not the mother of bombs.
My own mother taught me this.
She died with a bumper sticker
inside the back window of her last car
taped there in hopes she’d soon
be able to take it down. It said:
Endlessthis war.
She taped it there 17 years ago.
She's died since of natural causes,
like a broken heart.
She'd taught me not to let them take
one’s sons to war. I aborted any sons.
We’d like to abort this mission, sir.
Our country answers,
these are your bombs,
so you must pay for them.
We grit our teeth to rubble.
We spit again: these are not our bombs.
Yes, he insists, these are your bombs
because you paid for them.
We will not pay.
We will not make enough money to
owe you anything
country who calls itself ours.
And these guns are not ours,
country who calls us free.
-Karina Lutz
previously published in:
Her Words, Black Mountain Press (Winter 2021): 20-21. https://theblackmountainpress.com/blog/herwords-is-out/;
and Catalyst, Prevention at the Intersections (April 2021): 24. http://www.acatalystjournal.org/
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