Remembering the Alchemists

My essay, Remembering the Alchemists, has received a Pushcart Prize.

My gratification at the prize was dampened by the fact that when it was announced my friend the poet Mosab Abu Toha and his wife and 3 young children were hiding in the crawl space under their home in Gaza while F-16s made in the U.S.A. turned their neighborhood to hell — the very subject of the essay. They survived; some of their neighbors did not. So it’s like getting a blue ribbon and a pat on the back for saying, “Stop killing and terrorizing children with diabolical war machines!”

In the essay I ask this question: “What does it mean to be the foremost arms dealer in the world? The health of our American economy presently depends upon the murder of other human beings. How did we get here? When did we make this deal with the devil? How long have we been addicted to this poison?”