Spite

There were once stars over Hurghada, praying for Thebes    
as our grenades were spraying above the Pyramids of Giza    
and Abu Simbel. Streams and screams of cracked window light    
did not shield the reflection of fight in a little boy's eyes.    
He stood, still as Abu Simbel, surveying stars over Hurghada.     
   
The hot teapot scolded his young hands for stopping on the open road.    
Mother had probably whispered 'مستقيم الظهر' beneath the tongue of moonlight    
but stars in Hurghada had shone through the night and stolen his heart    
and father's presence in Libya shattered brain and soul and fear with tanks    
and mother's longing for her husband ran red through the river Nile.    
   
The lad set down his teapot and, arms raised to an attacked sky, he    
prayed with words I could not fathom. He praised with a saddening     
stringlets of words. I crouched and stared from ancient, dusty columns that drew the line between    
trained terrorist and a true civilian. Time refrained from it's sensible pattern and seemed so slow as the young boy chanted     
for a moment I wondered if we were forming future monsters from nothing more than star-gazing children.