Gaza - Enduring Christmas Season Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

'Merry Christmas'
keeps echoing in my ears
as voices from far and near
keep wishing me season's greetings
but my mind keeps floating
and recollecting the sufferings
of the helpless people of Gaza
and of Syria, of Lebanon, of Ukraine,
who are so drenched with afflictions
which keep on escalating
due to the incessant war they keep facing
and causing them anguish
with so many deaths and injuries
which still keep occurring
even thro' the Xmas season.

How can the world keep watching this?
How can I myself enjoy my Christmas
when my own agony levitates
as I envisage their defenselessness,
their vulnerability
as they have no hospitals nor medicines,
no homes nor food
to decline their hunger and distress.

If only could Christmas bring around peace
in Gaza and in Israel,
in Syria and in Yemen
in Lebanon and in Ukraine
serenity would have entwined solidarity
and empowered these nations
to live and breathe freely
rather persist in tears and fears
of bombs and explosions,
of deaths and injuries.

And though Christmas is here again,
my own mind rolls back silently
in memories of those Christmas years
I spent joyously;
but today I lament at the plight
of sufferings of those
who sit and sleep in the cold out there
in those war-torn countries
with no food to eat,
with no clothes nor home,
nor a fireplace to keep them warm;
and it makes me weep as
neither can these families light a candle
and pray unitedly on Christmas day
so as to cherish fully the sanctity
of Christmas festivity.