I bought Bomb Pops for Memorial Day,
hoping to surprise my kids with their nostalgic sticky-sweetness,
to watch them relish the fresh summer heat,
red white and blue dripping down their arms.
But we ate them as real bombs
(draped in American dollars)
were being dropped on kids in Rafah,
their blood dripping,
their very lives melting.
Why do we feed our children the cold-steel shape of military might,
giving them a palate for artificially-colored remembrance
that memorializes only certain kinds of loss?
How do we stomach our own saccharine stories of state-sponsored violence
without honoring the full and ever-unfolding cost of war,
without naming every life consumed?
O God,
make us a people not of nationalist novelties,
but a first-fruits people:
a people who seek and share strawberry-shaped promises of peace and resurrection,
earthen truths that swallow bombs whole.
Amen.
Click HERE to read other prayers concerning the Israel-Hamas war