Baghdad Lullaby II

While everyone is celebrating and watching the soldiers pin daisies to their pockets,
The statues of Saddam Hussein being toppled in the squares of Baghdad,
The smiling faces conjured up for the camera,
Who is going to mourn the dead?
Who is going to record their faces?
Who is going to record their bodies lying in hospital beds,
broken and burned almost beyond the point of recognition?
Who is going to wipe the tears of that child on the television,
Her future destroyed by the relentless bombing?
Who is going to console the twelve year old boy
Whose mother and father and brother were killed,
Whose very hands were blown away?
"If I can’t get artificial hands, I will kill myself. Can you help me get new hands?"
He asked the journalist who was in the hospital, tears streaming down both their faces.
(Is this what they call a humanitarian request?)


Who is going to account for all the soldiers,
A half-generation of young men dead and not even accounted for?
Who will prepare their graves?
Who will decorate their chests with medals,
Who will ensure their honor lasts beyond life and even into death?
Only God will walk amongst their graves
Muhammed on his right hand, Jesus on his left
Because after the celebrations are over
And the tanks have all rolled away
The stars will be put out in the skies
Only God is left to close their eyes.