Liber Ars

Between the dust and broken stone,
where sirens stitch the dusk with tone,
In the Gaza Strip two sisters stand,
Memory, with names cupped in her hand,
And Oblivion, loosening grief’s tight seam.
One guards the truth of what has been,
one cools the blade of might have been.
Between them, brick by careful brick,
they build a peace no bomb can nick.

Memory carries names like seeds,
pressed in the earth of unmet needs.
She builds with stories, bone by bone,
a house where grief is not alone.
Oblivion moves with gentler art,
lifting the rubble from the heart.
Not to erase, not to deny,
but to unhook the endless cry.
Memory sketches doors that open wide,
for children on the other side.
She lays foundations deep and clear,
with "Never again" carved into fear.
Oblivion hums, "Release the blade.
Let yesterday not ambush trade.
Let vengeance, like a rusted key,
fall useless in the olive tree".

Together, like architects of air,
they measure justice, brick by care.
They raise an arch of listening stone
where rival griefs are both made known.
Peace is not built by amnesia’s sweep,
nor by a memory that cannot sleep.
It stands where truth and mercy meet,
a trembling bridge across the street.

And war, that old devourer of names,
finds fewer rooms to light with flames
when Memory plants, and hands forgive,
and both decide the other may live.

So let the blueprints start tonight,
with candles, classrooms, shared daylight.
For even here, beneath the scar,
a city dreams beyond the war.

©Liber Ars, 2025

Image credits: V.P.