Peace Sonnet Chain #4 : Naush Sabah

The sky cracks in a water-filled crater,
phosphor-flash over hulking bulldozer.
Past high walls and old hills, developers
sketch new houses over mass graves,
as the strip’s measured by rows of bodies,
national monuments to life, marked by stones
on the highway’s central reservation,
separating the lanes from death to death.
These two mounds mark ten years of trying,
twin mirrors broken in their birthright’s earth.
But a mother’s faith is unbreakable,
forged in torn flesh and sleep deprivation.
Every man and boy is a mother here,
Steeped in the humanity they’re stripped of.