To Turn

Amineh Abou Kerech

They threw a very little ping-pong ball
at my country, a very little ball.

I thought the ball would come back
and everything would be okay

but I was wrong. The ball was small
but the sound was huge enough

to shake the whole country,
to turn the beautiful country

black and white,
to turn the laughing of children

to crying,
to turn the smell of jasmine

to the smell of the bombed,
to turn the flat blue sky to black

and turn the soft green grass
to brown dry nothing.