They will never return

Children at the remains of their home destroyed in January's Israeli military offensive, in Jebaliya, northern Gaza Strip. Credit Contributor: Mark Pearson / Alamy Stock Photo

I keep thinking
Thinking about Palestinians
People who have lost their lives
Now tens if not hundreds of thousands

In Gaza, in the West Bank

Most simply ordinary people

And the poets
Writers, journalists
Doctors, nurses, teachers
Philosophers, Historians
Children, wives, husbands

Lives ended
The loss, the loss
The infinite loss
The gifts, unknown infinite
They could have given
To our common humanity

Now, they never will
For they are in the realm of Non-existence
Existence replaced by Nothingness

John Janusz Ebel

John-Janusz Ebel is the son of Holocaust survivors. Soon after coming to Australia from Poland, Ebel chose to be a draft resister and activist against the Vietnam War; he also participated in Aboriginal struggles against continued oppression and genocide of Aboriginal people. Ebel has practised as a radical existentialist psychotherapist.