[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).]
A Shroud of the Miraculous
For the 14,000 Children Massacred in Gaza
Dr. Stephanie Mines
It is made of finely woven linen.
So that the soul’s breath of the dead
Is visible, to those who can see.
The shroud moves up and down.
Like a cotton kaftan on a grieving woman,
Standing at the edge of the sea at sunset
On a summer night.
Silence fills the universe.
I am starving to hold these babies,
All 14,000 of them,
In my mother’s arms.
I know every one of their names.
As they saw the last explosion
Before the darkness,
So do my eyes burn with the
Acrid poison of their sentencing.
These are now the holy hours that have descended upon us.
Souls fall into the healing waters and then instantaneously,
Rise up again,
Ascending momentarily like the green flash
Everyone wants to see.
Each one of these children is a relation to one of us,
So that all our family lines are now haunted.
We will never forget.
This vow is
Enshrined in our collective memory.
We live to redeem you,
You, the 14,000,
And all who come after you.
None are abandoned.
We are The Elders.