Seven Steps to Heaven Haiku
If every bomb
Appeared in the sky a dove
Shrapnel into rain
If vengeance vanquished
From the cursed lips of weak men
An idea never taking root
If every tank vanished
If by chance a miracle
Peace reclaims the land
If laughter broke out
Like wars fought with satire’s
Pugilist punning
What room would there be
For anger what bitter root
Not allowed to stretch
Its tentacles
Through the hearts of men hardened
By indifference
What will we bequeath
Our children if not a world
Evermore human
Copyright © 2024 by Tony Medina. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 19, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I don’t know why it is, but my mind often thinks in haiku. You know how musicians sometimes swing in 4/4 time? My poet’s mind functions in the American 5/7/5. This was the rhythm that gripped me as my conscious and subconscious were absorbing the atrocities in Israel and Gaza, of late, and considering the twin terrors of vengeance and retribution, I wanted to make sense of the violence and inhumanity unfolding sans the what-about-isms that frequently bound and gag the geopolitical conversation. And Miles Davis’s classic tune ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’ walked in. Oh, if this war-ravaged world could only be so lucky, and we could evolve as a species to create a human harmony—a nirvana never seen.”
—Tony Medina
Tony Medina
Tony Medina is the author of several books including Death, With Occasional Smiling (Indolent Books, 2021) and Broke Baroque (2Leaf Press, 2013). The recipient of awards including the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, the Langston Hughes Society Award, and the African Voices Literary Award, he is a professor of creative writing at Howard University.