Poem: "Maybe Just Words are Just Words"

Rest in power to the 1,200 Israelis killed one year ago this week, and to the 44,000 Palestinians who have died in the violence that followed.

In moments of unspeakable tragedy, words often feel small, inadequate. As a poet, I’ve found myself wrestling with drafts that never seem to capture the weight of loss. I’ve spoken to many others—writers and poets—who feel the same. We’ve wept over lines, torn poems to shreds, and found ourselves in a loop of starting over, hoping the next line might come closer to truth.

But what if our words can never be "good enough"? What if no matter how carefully we craft them, they fall short of honoring the dead or making sense of their deaths?

The poem below reflects that struggle, that helplessness. We feel the urgency to act, yet we sit with the awareness that words are all we have. So we write. We tear up what we write. And in doing so, we bear witness the only way we know how.