Laughter of Crows

Image courtesy of https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/09/01/hostages-death-in-captivity-announced-by-families/
Six bodies,
Six bodies—

Fifteen minutes later,
six bodies forgotten
in the collected dust
of memory upon the world.

Six souls passed away,
imprisoned from the light of God.
The sky shrinks away
from the edge of earth
as the six join 1139.

I did not know any of them.
Not one soul.
I did not have a friend, a neighbor,
a brother, a sister,
a father, a mother, a cousin,
an aunt, an uncle,
no son, no daughter
among them.
But I mourn them,
as if I knew them,
as if they were family.
I feel the empty spot
they left upon leaving the world.

You ask me why I feel their loss so…
My answer—because I am human.
In return, I ask…Why do you not feel it so?

No answers found
in the mocking caw of crows
who laugh at humanity.