Poetry by Stephen K. Levine

Lebanon in Saas Fee

In Lebanon bombs
level suburbs, turning
population into
stone. Militants fire
rockets, exploding
into towns.

In Saas Fee we
dream of Paradise,
une promesse de
bonheur.

Can we hold them
together, the beauty and
the fear?

Angels pass
over, waiting for
death to
come.

The Precious Hours

These are the precious
hours when all is
still, the world
not yet awake, all
dreams of glory lived
only in the dream, the
moment before the
killing starts. O let it
stay like this. Let the
rough voices not cry
out in rage. Let all the
sufferers sleep, oblivious of
death outside the door.
Be still, I would
entreat. Be still. And
stave off once the
sounds of
war.

Again?

Again? Could this be happening
again? One of them reading
the Koran while his
family waited, Another saying,
"I am freind. Do not
shoot."

Twenty-four men, women and
children. We always name
them that way. Twenty-four
souls. Twenty-four senient
beings, each separate, each
worth remembering. I
don't know their names.

My Lai. Haditha. These
I will remember. We
kill them again and
again. The children. The
women. The men.

Well, they were in a
frenzy. Well, one of our
buddies had been blown
up. Well, we were in
our third tour of
duty. Well.

A well is a hole
in the ground, we
used to say. There is
no hole deep enough to
bury these deeds. The
dead will rise again,
praying, speaking, accusing
us again and again and
again. We can never
erase this shame. We shall
never erase this
shame.