Ceasefire Haiku
1.
Pray for those who plant
Seeds in the rubble, who spurn
Despair as they’re slain.
2.
Pray for the young who’ve
Learned to translate rage into
Might, grief into light.
3.
Pray for the elders,
Whose blood holds a history
Blessed by fearlessness.
4.
Pray for the story-
Tellers whose sharpened voices
Cut through lies, free hope.
5.
Pray for the newborns
Left to die. They too beheld
Your savage frailty.
6.
Pray for the ones held
Captive—for months, for years. Free
Them all. The land too.
7.
Pray for the distant
Witnesses. May they always
Fight for justice, peace.
8.
Pray for the villains
Too, that their dead hearts might house
Some buds of mercy.
9.
Pray for the dead, God’s
Children, martyred. Ask them for
Forgiveness. Ours, yours.
10.
O Lord, bless us with
Bigger hearts—vast enough to
Hold grief and virtue.
Faisal Mohyuddin is a poet, educator, and visual artist. The author of Elsewhere: An Elegy (Next Page Press, 2024), The Displaced Children of Displaced Children (Eyewear, 2018), and The Riddle of Longing (Backbone, 2017), he teaches high school English in suburban Chicago and creative writing at Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies; he also serves as a Master Practitioner with the global not-for-profit Narrative 4.