Vera, what has become of you?

Sitting on your pile of rubble
on my $1 op shop record’s cover:
Hits of the Blitz.

Your blue pleated skirt fans against a half-fallen wall;
black pumps balance against exposed brick;
collared white shirt crisp;
hair a coiffured halo.

You might have been the nation’s angel
but your manicured hand still holds on for dear life
to the bare steel skeleton of someone's house.
Vera, are you thinking about falling?

You smile wide, but longingly like
you can see those white cliffs right off camera.
Vera, we're reaching for them still.
I've heard the bomb sites were like playgrounds in Bromley et al.
growing up in a scar —
happens all over this world.

Bricks got flung by the angry earth in my childhood, 
stepping over them while silt spewed. I remember it,
right behind my eyes, and on my screens
Gaza crumbles.
In the dark I see them both.

Vera, what even are your bluebirds —
it’s a whole genus, actually, Sialia. Did you know
in Greek it just meant ‘bird’?
Quite uninspiring, really, but I suppose they do sing.

Vera, have you heard of Cinnyris osea, ‘sunbird’?
In Greek, ‘osea’ meant ‘holy’ –
they have a wide octave range, an alarm call like a siren.
Vera, they fly over Palestine now.

Vera, Blitz bricks lay where they fell,
waiting to be enthroned;
Christchurch’s got jangled together 
with each aftershock like broken piano keys;
Gaza’s bricks are just dust.

Vera, Palestine is not such a palatable tragedy.
Vera, the sunbirds are eviscerated by drones.
Vera, it’s not a war it’s a genocide.
Vera, your voice warbled of hope in dark times.

Generations later we treasure it,
but Vera, Palestine —
what about theirs?