Asking the Unanswerable

Tears burn to hear
Of a girl,  not yet a woman,
Keeping an infant still
so he will not be shot,
Because they were killing babies too.

To hear the words
of a poet*
who poured out his life
so beautifully
in verse,
so hideously in blood.

I tremble
at the random acts,
Innocents, terrified,
wounded,
slaughtered
By the hot, thoughtless
fire of jihad.

I ask the unanswerable questions.
What God wishes such offerings?
Prefers blood to poetry,
Dead children
to live ones, running, laughing?
Murderous piety
to frivolous, loving
abundance?

What God,
And in what horrific world
would that God
earn such passionate, violent,
grim,
obedience?
What world?
What God

*Kofi Awoonor