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A Bomber’s Jeremiad*
I haven’t changed my
way of life; I continue to love myself
and make use of others.
Only, the confession of my crimes
allows me to begin
again lighter in heart and to taste a
double enjoyment, first
of my nature and secondly of
a charming repentance –
The Fall, Albert
Camus
When we bomb we do so with
regret.
Not for us the intent to
maim;
it is with pure heart we
send our wrath.
When we speak and
aim
we do so with precision,
concision.
We have surveyed the
battlefield:
the houses, mosques and
universities,
along with barracks and
infirmaries.
We know all the
trajectories
of rhetoric and falling
bricks,
of cleansing words and
shredding steel.
We feel, for those
peripherals;
those to the side, so to
speak
when we wreak our
replies
into an infinity of eyes
for eyes.
We wish, no, we
lament
that our enemies found
themselves
in the wrong place: a
schoolyard,
a hospital, a friend’s
basement.
They put themselves in the
midst
of all our accidental
excesses.
Though, we planned very
well;
hell, we know Picasso’s
knell.
We know Ruben’s
too;
and now, how to keep
babies out of view.
We are, after all, and
after The Fall,
well
educated.
You must understand our
dilemma:
we wish no harm to
innocents.
We care for the
children,
the mothers, sisters,
yeah,
even brothers and their
lovers.
We also care for those
without clothes,
and walkers, talkers,
pranksters, petty thieves;
even these and even
those
who sit on couches: heaven
knows.
But all this is out of our
hands.
I’m afraid our
ordinances
are
preordained.
You see, our
apologies
and staged, pro forma
colloquies
are prepared in
advance.
For, we know the
limbless,
those with and without
faces;
we know the charred
remains.
We know all those children
and their games
torn asunder for
eternity;
just not the names, not
the names.
Surely, you understand the
precedent?
We are all vile and
innocent it
seems,
by necessity and
accident,
we can no longer
tell
the dreamer from the
dreams..
Simon Carroll, PhD
University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
* Jeremiad - a long, mournful lament
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