(This poem was written in 2003 for the Middle East Children's Alliance. I reposted it in response to todays news from Gaza.) 

Memorial

The island of Mona is in the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.  It's a lima-bean shaped piece of coral seabed that got lifted 200 feet into the air, it has a plateau full of sinkholes and riddled with caves, covered with aromatic brush full of lizards, wild goats, birds and giant iguanas.  Sand has piled up over the millennia and made a slightly moister lowland of palms, shade trees and clouds of butterflies, where the single brackish spring rises. In the sparkling, incredibly clear waters below the cliffs, sharks cruise, dolphins leap and great sea turtles feed in the shallows.