Day 380

In the hospital courtyard the tents are burning.
A mother and her son lie dead, 
wound together in the shroud of their tent.
What they had been living in
has become their grave.  Their bodies
indistinguishable from one another
except for the gold necklace 
the mother had worn, by which
what remains of her can be identified.
No hands no feet no face no eyes no words.
They will not walk again across the stones.
They will not sit and speak with the others.
Their bodies are merged in death
as they were merged
when the boy was in the womb 
sharing his mother’s blood.   
The sky overhead that was filled with birds
is filled with drones.  The tents burn and burn,
their smoke blurs the October moon.

Day 379

Go and find the place
where you lived your days.
If you look long enough
at the crushed walls, the collapsed
ceilings, you may find one thing
you can take with you, keep
in your pocket:
a stone from a necklace
your daughter wore, a handle of a cup
you drank from, a piece
of broken glass from a window
where you sat and looked out
at the street, the passing seasons.
If you look long enough at the remains
of your life you will find your children
sitting again at the table, your parents
talking to each other at the end
of the day, your wife
tired, just come in
from her work, your grandmother
in her chair in the corner of the room, 
reading or sewing. Why among all these
have you been the survivor? The
one who searches? The teller of stories?

Day 378

A girl had a bird in a cage.
A beautiful bird, a cockatiel.
The cage golden, like a golden bell.
They spoke to each other, the bird
rode on her shoulder, the girl
stroked the bird and smiled
at her; it was clear
they loved each other.
Girl and bird in a tent.  How
they made people smile 
when they walked by.  How
it was clear that whatever
the girl had, she shared 
with the bird:  a morsel
of bread, a slice of fruit.
Did you tell me the bombers
came?  Did you say the bombs
set the tents on fire?  Flames
everywhere, smoke.  The tents
collapsing, everything
turned to ash, and the girl
and her bird: ash.  The golden cage,
its bars melted from the heat, sheltering
nothing but ash.

Day 377

Bodies line the street in Jabaliya.
Children step over them
as they walk, looking for wild greens
to eat.  One of them
sees the father of his friend
lying in the dust, face
half blown off, the one
remaining eye staring up
at everyone who passes.  The child
bends, looks at the man, remembers
how he kicked a ball
down this same street only weeks
ago, over and over, and the kids
kicked it back.  The child
takes off his light jacket, covers
his friend’s father’s face, his neck.
Speaks his name, says goodbye.
Runs a little to catch up
with his brothers.

Day 376

There’s a video of the child —
not two years old — walking
in the living room of his house,
throwing a ball.  Laughing.  Then
the genocide comes and hunger
begins to consume him.  He grows
smaller, weaker.  Doesn’t walk
across the room, leaves the ball
in a corner.  Whatever food
his parents find, they give to him.
He eats:  avidly at first.  Then weakness
surpasses hunger.  His mother
holds him as she did
when he was a newborn.  His body
grows backward.  Dissolves.
Evaporates.  Each hour he grows
closer to the Nothing he came from.
At last it takes him
from his mother’s arms, 
folds him into itself.

Day 375

Lay a cloth over the bodies of the dead,
Cover the eyes that stared into the dark.
Cover the mouths that gasped, that cried
silently the names of all their beloved.
Cover the ears where every sound stopped
but the sound of the blast.
Lay a cloth over the bodies
whose arms and legs have already gone
into splintered graves.  Lay a cloth
over the shrieks, the dreams, the fragments
of songs. Cover the future that some
no longer believed in, cover the thousand syllables
of despair.  Soak the cloth in blood, in every
river you have known, in the sea’s
repetition, the fluids of birth. Stretch the cloth
over black fields, soil that yields nothing,
bones of animals bleached by the sun. Then
stand, look out at the endlessness of cloth,
bend your head, speak
whatever words you remember of rage and blessing. 

Day 374

The first day the child walked, he was killed.
He stood, looked around, took one step
toward his father, whose arms opened
to receive him.  The sun was bright,
the dust had settled since the day before,
the child brought himself
to a stand, put one little foot in front of himself
and walked toward his father.  Who could say
where he would have gone next?  His father’s
arms open, the pace of the child’s
movement confident, strong.  He walked.
He looked at his father, both of them
smiling.  He reached him.  That’s how
they were found, the child’s small legs
and his father’s long legs tangled together.
That’s how they died.  The child walked
to his father. Then suddenly couldn’t see
him; everything black.  But he could feel
his father’s arms receiving him, wrapped
tightly, then more tightly, around him.

Day 373

(for Mohammed Mhawish)

The poet’s friends are falling
like felled trees.  His mentor
murdered, fellow students gone.
Who will remain to tell
the story?  Each day another death.
More.  Each day the air
blackens, flames erupt, bodies
and parts of bodies plunge
to the ground.  In a burnt
field, severed hands.  Which
of these hands carved wood, planted
seeds, fitted one pipe to another,
wiped the forehead of a sick child, shaved
a beard, played an instrument, wrote a poem?

Day 372

Who will find the body of this child?
His family is carrying it in plastic bags
to where they will bury him.  His laughter
in one bag, his fear in another.  The sweetness
of his voice in the bag his sister holds,
the wind that blew through his hair
as he ran — his brother holds the bag
with that.  Not long ago he lay
in his crib making sounds that began
to weave themselves into sentences,
stories.  Who will piece him together
now, so he can sleep in the earth,
a whole boy?

Day 371

The girl’s aunt has been raising her in a shelter
since the girl’s parents were killed.  The girl
is talking about how they dug her out of the rubble,
how she called to the rescuers in a weak voice,
how much pain she was in, how her arms
afterward had to be amputated. I loved 
to draw, she says.  And my mother
was teaching me to knit. Six days
into the second year, no end
to this in sight. I don’t know,
she says, what else I will lose.  Now she is talking
about how they feed people at the shelter —
one meal a day — and how her aunt
gives her food from her own plate, because
she is growing.  She dreams sometimes
that her arms are growing back, that she can grasp
a fork again, a knife.  Hold someone’s hand.