Peace Accords of the Hospital Ward

Peace Accords of the Hospital Ward

Do you remember me my Arab sister
6am frantic panicked 
at the hospital in the heart of Jerusalem?

We brushed arms as we rushed our girls along
that sickening maze of hallways

for twin bronchoscopies 
for our 2 year old princesses

yours had swallowed a bottle cap
and mine had such couching fits 
she could hardly breathe

both of them fussy & 
fasting from the night before
yet they played together seamlessly, dreamily 
on that sterile floor

with their small armies of figurines
enacting scenes 
of war and wonder 
in the hospital ward
and I wondered 
what you thought of their 'imaginary' games

as I handed out crackers and raisins
like peace offerings
to you, my distant cousin
both of so sullen, so estranged 

and yet we wept in unison 
when the nurses came to escort
our angels away...down that endless hallway

put them to sleep one after the other 
with tiny matching gas masks
saw them lay limp & unconscious 
on that cold steel slab. 

Remember how you and I sat 
outside the locked metal door
on the blue plastic chairs
- broken, sunken, scared

Perfect strangers
...strong as sisters
...tight as thieves

praying to our respective Gods
the same exact pleas - 
for holding healing relief

*

And that hallway was morphed into 
a make-shift mosque
a sudden synagogue
and we were the choir wailing 
in a harmony 
of mother's agony

weeping up something holy
right there in the beit holim

out of our minds 
with the pining 
only known by parents
in cold plastic hospital seats

*
And I want you to know
that You were my family that day.

Your presence was my haven  
I took refuge in your gaze
Soothed by the fact that there in the hospital 
we could never be enemies

because we were too busy 
battling shared adversaries
of weary, worry 
waste and weakness 

all we had between us
was our sameness
our sadness
our senseless 
vulnerability.
 
Both of us bowed deep  - bent knee
to that same divine  
Mender of disease.

*
And remember 
that luminous moment when 
our prayers were answers 
with the eloquence 
of the slowly opening eyelids of our children

and we were elated
& related in shared relief

and you know what
I want to share that ecstatic sentiment with you again 
- my cousin, my sister, my friend...
  
I want to see a day 
when both of our families 
will be massively relieved 
at the end of this surgery
- this treacherous surgery - 
known as the conflict in the Middle East.

For make no mistake 
this conflict is our common enemy 
both of us suffer from this noxious & contagious 
communicable disease

*
So sweet sister, please
let us be focused
& bound by one purpose 
the love of kindness 
the work of healing
the care for innocence
& children and all that is decent

For my call to arms is not a call to harm
but a call to these holding limbs of hope 
that our children might 
live in a home 
a little more whole 
a little more holy 
with a lot less hating
and a lot more embracing

where we see no more 
terror over territory 
shed not blood
but rather tears 
of rejoicing 
over our shared recovery 
from this rank disease.

*
For the Messianic era 
may or may not be at hand
but it might just be in our hands
- that we may outstretch them
to hold each other in our hours of direst need
 - just like you did for me....

And here in this hospital  
we will broker a lasting peace.

Not by politicians in parliaments
but by parents in blue plastic hospital seats. 

Sharing crackers and raisins
and Messianic visions.

And this will be the Peace Accords
of the Hospital Ward;
a place so ironically, iconically
more hospitable to peace

So may it be...