Palestinian women and children fleeing the guns in Gaza and a girl grieving over her football team losing in the World Cup (ironically with the same degree of emotion) have inspired this painting. Bonnie, an American nurse, worked with Palestinian refugee women and children in Lebanon. She was gunned down by a terrorist. Jesus, on the way to his execution, told the women of Jerusalem not to cry for him, but instead for themselves and their children.
I want to tell you but my mouth will not.
Everything has already changed
and whatever I might say
is silenced by terror, by the actual,
by the stone moment.
The mothers are stone. The children are stone.
The baby is now a stone baby.
The stone baby will become a stone child
will become a stone adult
and pray to a stone god.
I want to tell you but my
scream
has become
stone.