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Words Matter

Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - W

Long fabric in Hyde Park, Sydney, listing the names of 11,000 children who died in Gaza. People flying the Palestinian flag stand around it, reading the names.

It should be a celebration, this last day of 2023.

 There are picnics, there is music. Soon there will be fireworks.

 I think about the word concerned. Leaders are concerned about the civilian deaths in Gaza.

 Often I am also concerned about the washing left out when there’s the possibility of rain or else I’m concerned I didn’t carry an empty coffee cup to the sink.

 So many children have died.

 11,000 children on this last day of 2023.

 11,000 children, and they inhabit the bodies of the children I see wherever I go.

 A child, for the record, is a human being under the age of 18.

 The world knows this.

 It’s only that singer who pretends she doesn’t.

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