Source, Wikipedia: Less than two months after her arrival in Palestine, on March 16, 2003, Rache Corrie was killed after a three-hour confrontation between two IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) bulldozers and eight peace activists. Wearing a bright orange fluorescent jacket... she was killed while standing in the path of a bulldozer that she believed was about to demolish the house of Palestinian friends.

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(Note: American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death on March 16, 2003, while trying to stop an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) armored bulldozer from demolishing Palestinian homes in the occupied Gaza Strip.) 

Barely a woman, twenty-three years old--

Soft, vulnerable. Surely, the Monster

Will stop in its tracks!

She steels her will,

Thinks of the tank in Tiananmen Square--

One little man stopping a tank!

Surely,

They will perceive her love-resolve:

To die in a great cause is to mortar--

Not martyr--the Cause!

She must not die!

Cannot break her parents' hearts--

Back home!  (She sees them now!)

If only they knew

How she had grown!

They would understand

This other love that held her now

In place, this love of home and place,

And the Other,

Of the faces, the voices, the laughter...

Olive groves and sun-scented skin;

The love she'd found for dispossessed:

Children, fathers, mothers--also of her,

Belonging to her, because

Everyone suffering was One.

It was hard to explain... but the Monster

Truck was coming now--remorseless Caterpillar,

Sci-fi bulldozer to scoop her up!

It would stop in its tracks!

Because a man drove it!

A man who would see her, 

In her orange jacket

Like a bumble bee!

He would see she had to

Do it--stand there in its way

(Though its iron mouth gaped,

Though its hard lips snarled).

To save their houses, olive groves... to save

Herself!  And these other selves--part of her

And part of the one who drove the Monster

Closer now, with droning, cacophonous,

Tank-like clanking,

And the sun in its panes like eyes.

Surely

It must stop, if she steels her will, is resolute,

Peers in his eyes... surely... then... understand...

He will--the suffering, the children, why she stood

In its way--

Barely a woman, bones against

The iron tread, encircling,

Winding, crushing, crackling,

Bursting in sunburst light,

In the dying light,

For the sake of all.

Gary Corseri has published his work at hundreds of websites and periodicals   worldwide, including OpEdNews, Common Dreams, The New York Times, and Counterpunch.   He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, edited the Manifestations literary anthology, and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.   He has taught at US public schools and prisons and at US and Japanese universities.   He has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library.

Authors Bio:
Gary Corseri has published & posted his work at hundreds of venues worldwide, including Op Ed News, The New York Times, CounterPunch, CommonDreams, DissidentVoice, L.A. (and Hollywood--) Progressive. He has been a professor in the US & Japan, has published 2 collections of poetry, 2 novels, and edited a literary anthology. He has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and his dramas have been produced on Atlanta-PBS and elsewhere.