Abstract
Light a candle for human animals the people of Gaza;
Light a candle because promises were made—
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”
—and kept.
Hold a candle in the crevice where a crushed child hopes until her last gasp evaporates.
Light a candle to find her fingers, which still wiggle though the arm is feet from the rest of the body.
Light a candle and scream.
Weep.
Then light a candle and stand.
Your outrage, your righteous indignation, they will be used against you.
So, light a candle to express your compassion meditatively.
Light a candle in perpetual vigil.
Light a candle while you fast.
Light a candle for reason. For the triumph of science over faith, except when it matters.
Light a candle if you are afraid to speak.
Hold the candle firmly and speak, nevertheless. Genocide.
Light a candle for praises on the lips of the dying.
Light a candle for unencumbered transitions to the place where souls rest.
Light a candle for Mother Earth, fat lady of the Global South.
She has yet to sing.
To view the original version of this poem, see the supplemental material section of this article online.
Keywords
Light a candle for we claim all our relations. Light a candle for our kin. Light a candle while tenderly pronouncing names in an ancient, Semitic language. Light a candle to “honor thy father and thy mother” to whom Moses lied; their days were not long upon the land that was given them.(Exodus 20:12) Light a candle for angels who populate desecrated graves. Light a candle for unanswered prayers. For unfulfilled wishes, dreams, tomorrows. For unrelenting grief. Light a candle when there is no one left to hold or nothing to say. Light a candle from Indigenous People’s Day 2023 to Indigenous People’s Day 2024, and beyond it. Light a candle and mourn. Light a candle for echoes. Native peoples told us so centuries ago.(Dunbar-Ortiz, 2021; Zinn, 1995)
Light a candle as the earth tumbles into darkness.(Rodriguez, 2022; Roy, 2002) Light a candle in the prisons where tortured anuses wail, burst, bleed(United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2024; United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 2024) while elsewhere citizens feed unbothered by manmade famine. Hold a candle in the crevice where a crushed child hopes until her last gasp evaporates. Light a candle to find her fingers, which still wiggle though the arm is feet from the rest of the body. Light a candle as everyday people and others are assassinated. One at a time, whole families, in ambulances, during media blackouts, in broad daylight, in food lines, in refugee tents, while sleeping, while on operating tables, for target practice, and with full impunity. Light a candle because promises were made(Shatz et al., 2024)— “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”(Fabian, 2023)— and kept.(Shatz et al., 2024; The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, 2024) Light a candle as they grow bored with this Gaza and begin creating new ones. Some of us will be next. Some already are.
Light a candle for verbs: love, truth, peace. Justice. Light a candle and scream. Weep. Then light a candle and stand. Light a candle for those among us who lack courage For this is the time when courage is needed. Light a candle to be seen by comrades who are lighting candles, too. Light a candle in defiance. For our silence will not protect us. Nor will our speaking up. Your outrage, your righteous indignation, they will be used against you.(Shaheed, 2024) So, light a candle to express your compassion meditatively. Light a candle in perpetual vigil. Light a candle while you fast. Light a candle to witness. It takes strength to witness. We see, feel, hear, smell. So, we must re-tell because it is unspeakable.
Light a stately candle on the hill where public health died far from the front lines where emaciated novices drape themselves in press vests to document atrocities and barefoot teens dodge missiles to serve communal meals. Light a candle in protest as researchers stand up for science but sit this one out. Light a candle for reason, which triumphs over faith, except when it matters. Light a candle in the shadows where health equity tourists hide—their grants and jobs intact. Light a candle in classrooms where professors are fired for teaching and student questions go unanswered.(Shaheed, 2024) Wait—We don’t get it! If violence is a public health problem, and racism is a public health problem, and war is a public health problem, and maternal and child health is a public health problem, and the social determinants of health are public health problems, and public health is concerned with equity and policy, why can’t our group project focus on the genocide in Gaza? Light a candle when colleagues who have sworn to heal take leave to help a nation kill, then return to the office, the clinic, the department confused by your fear and mistrust of them.
Light a candle if you are afraid to speak. Hold the candle firmly and speak, nevertheless. For the spoken word has power. Genocide.(Assembly of States Parties, 1998; International Association of Genocide Scholars, 2025; International Court of Justice, 2024; Segal, 2023; Shatz et al., 2024; Stanton, 1996; The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, 2024; United Nations General Assembly, 1948; United Nations Human Rights Council, 2025) Light a candle to relinquish fear. To name genocidaires invites ruin.(Shaheed, 2024) So, light a candle instead. Light a candle for clarity. To burn through duplicitous chatter . . . lesser and not lesser evils. democracy. first amendment rights. the rule of law. . . .blah, blah, blah. Light a candle against high-tech policing and the censoring of scholars, against double standards and exceptions.(Shaheed, 2024) Light a candle for political prisoners in that land and this one. Light many candles of gratitude for the shaman and witch doctors, too, who warned of the evils white peoples would do.(Dunbar-Ortiz, 2021)
Light a candle knowing that if Gazans are “human animals(Fabian, 2023)” so, too, are those who cannibalize them. Light a candle for the end of European glory days.(Roy, 2002) For warranted curses and karma’s return. Light a candle when anguish and remorse settle in for lifetimes of torment, but do not delight in vengeance. Even light a candle for monsters who have known victimhood. Light a candle lest we become them. But light bigger candles for the victims of monsters. Light bigger candles, for many are the victims of monsters.
Light a candle for ancestors. For gods who guide us and those in whom we no longer can believe. Light a candle for unencumbered transitions to the place where souls rest. Light a candle for praises on the lips of the dying. Light a candle for resurrections. For immortal, divine, inextinguishable light. Light a candle as angels retrieve souls. Light a candle for our relations. Light a candle for Linda Eyes closed, whole body smiling to the joyous sound of children playing on the beaches of Gaza. Light a candle for Mother Earth, fat lady of the Global South. She has yet to sing.human animals the people of Gaza;
Implications for Practice
In accordance with Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP), this work provides a disciplinary critique of the public health profession for its two-year silence regarding what experts have repeatedly determined to be genocide (International Association of Genocide Scholars, 2025; Segal, 2023; United Nations Human Rights Council, 2025) ongoing against the people of Gaza, Palestine. The poem enumerates risk conditions, health impacts and professional responsibilities that render the crisis a public health problem. The field’s sustained, collective silence even about the unprecedented, catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza is facilitated by a complete disregard of our most fundamental professional principles. This disregard of our principles at a time when they are most needed signals the waning relevance of our profession as it is currently configured. For, if Public Health cannot articulate a response to a livestreamed genocide, how can it develop and implement interventions to mitigate other complex, emerging threats (Feldman & Bassett, 2024; Rodriguez, 2022) to “optimal health for all”?
In the absence of a collective public health response, this poem reminds us that to serve communities we must first honor their humanity. Indifference toward suffering portends a hardening (or hardened) heart.(Airhihenbuwa & Ford, 2018; Isaac, 2023) Hardened hearts enable the dehumanization of others, which is recognized as the fourth of ten steps toward commission of the crime of crimes, genocide. (Stanton, 1996) To advance health justice in the early 21st century may necessitate moving forward without the infrastructure and leadership of existing public health institutions. Though the work is difficult, isolating and increasingly dangerous, we who are committed to it can draw on the synergy that comes from working collectively while caring for our mental, physical and spiritual well-being.
Supplemental Material
sj-pdf-1-hpp-10.1177_15248399251382833 – Supplemental material for Light a Candle
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-hpp-10.1177_15248399251382833 for Light a Candle by Chandra L. Ford in Health Promotion Practice
Footnotes
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
