you would have / to have lived / a different kind / of life.
—from “No Explosions” by Naomi Shihab Nye
A mild morning, sky bright blue
with a few streaks of clouds above
streets and skyscrapers—it was
a good day to walk Millennium
Park with a smile on my face
I just could not put away until
a surprise roar of low-flying war
jets blasted the thousands of us—
kids splashing in the fountain,
families and clusters of friends
walking, laughing and gesturing,
and hundreds milling and posing
around the round mirror of The Bean.
Later tens of thousands of fans
at the ballpark watched those jets
and cheered the brazen payload
of booming noise rained down
onto the stands and grass and bases.
Not everyone shouted and clapped—
some had other skies in mind,
skies above cities reduced to ruins
of rubble, injury and death by similar
ungodly machines not practicing,
nor putting on a show, but delivering
whatever the opposite of mercy is.