Israeli settlers on my porch

Outside on the porch,

overlooking a slow-moving creek,

i see an abundance of spring green,

dotted with large blooms of purple Rhododendron,

and attractive red Azalea.

a busy squirrel is nosing the ground,

soon joined by another,

and they begin wrestling.

i am sipping my hot morning coffee,

while also watching a nearby robin sitting on her nest.

i know the robin is resting on warm, small blue eggs.

her eye are glossy, bright brown, shining with life:

she is alert to every movement and sound!

according to a book i referenced the evening before,

the eggs are due to hatch sometime soon.

the robin must know this, too.

but what she didn't know was that a mob of Israeli settlers

had just blocked a food convoy!

i read this news report between warm sips of my coffee.

it was unsettling, this latest news, but still i had the creek and the green

and the flowers.

the squirrels, too, and the robin with her eggs.

yet my thoughts slipped to a bad place i once visited:

Dachau, near Munich, Germany.

Then, away to the stories of the Warsaw ghetto,

of people being accosted on public streets, beaten.

smashed store front windows.  Raised sticks.  nighttime flames!

And images of skeletal bodies and, of course, those awful eyes,

shrunken, dark and despairing.  Railroad cars.

but the convoy was simply transporting flour and rice and other

needed essentials to a hungry people,

people who were of a different religion from the Israeli settlers.

people who were, according to reports, starving just the same.

this news told of piles of rice and flour that were thrown onto the dirt street,

to the accompaniment of loud cheers and other noises of celebration.

Yes, no food from this particular convoy would be delivered to the hungry mouths,

those waiting with hope just a few miles away.

so i looked again at the robin on her nest.

she was constantly alert!

soon, after hatching, her little babies would bob and weave,

stretching their weak necks skyward,

and their mouths would open cavernously, hugely for so small

a body below, expecting food.

sadly, i sat wondering if an Israeli settler group would block

the mother robin from feeding her babies.

and then my drink turned cold.