Day 410

Friend, I did not know
you had died.  I did not know
the bombs I heard
were exploding over your house.
I did not see your roof collapse, the walls
of the room where you slept
cave in on themselves, burying you
in your bed.  We’d sat in school
together for years, spoken 
of poetry, of our sisters, of how
we wanted to grow old
together, surrounded by children
and grandchildren, sit on the beach
together: two old women
serene at last, watching
the tide come in, go out, telling stories
about what our lives had been. 
Now your life has stopped forever
and I have to go on
alone, walking among these tents
on sand cloaked in dust.
The salt air we loved
heavy with smoke and the smell
of death, of sewage, of abandoned dreams.

Day 409

Voices are calling from under the rubble.
Some were buried there
an hour ago, some yesterday.
Some have been there
for more than a year. The concrete
grows heavier, bears the weight
of thousands of stories.  Some of the buried are
living, some dead.  Children are crying out
for their parents; parents are calling
their children’s names.  The voices are urgent,
angry, grieving, confused:  a moment ago
we were sitting at our table, sleeping
in our beds, reading at our desks.  Where
is the brown dog
who lay on the rug?  His pained voice,
too, cries from under the crumbled
walls.  He is desperate to find his people,
the ones whose touch comforted him,
the ones he was supposed to protect.  Even
when bodies have turned to dust, when
pieces of bone are all 
that sticks out between fallen
slabs, the voices persist, weeping or screaming.
You hear them in your sleep, you hear them
when you sit in your chair, 
when you walk by the way.
Don’t forget us, they call. Don’t think
you have destroyed us, disappeared us.

Day 408

She is touching the earth
around her ruined house
to see what it tells her.
She has come back
to see what remains.
You are still here, it says, though
you are the only one.
She is touching this ground
for what she knows will be
the last time:  tomorrow
she will leave for another place,
she will gather her few things
in the backpack that’s all
she has left of her child
and be displaced again.
You will remember me
 always, the dark soil is saying,
Don’t fear that you will forget me.
Here was where you planted
orange trees with your grandfather.
Here was where your grandmother
took her last breath.  She reaches
into it with her fingers, brings it
to her nose to take in
its fragrance, puts a small handful
in the pocket of her coat.  You are all
I take with me, she says; but already
she’s afraid the dirt is turning
away from her, holding its own
grief, not wanting to keep her.

Day 407

The father never asked for anything
from his children — not a cup
of tea, a blanket, nothing.
This is what they like to say
about him:  the father
would give his food
to his grandchildren, would bandage
the oozing wounds of the man
next door, would give water
to the cat before drinking himself.
After the bombing, when the father
lay on the floor, and his daughter
took off her headscarf to wipe
his blood, over and over,
the father kept asking her if she
was all right.  If she was tired,
cold, sick to her stomach
from all that bleeding.  And the daughter
kept shaking her head, No, No! 
until the last of his veins
soaked the rug, until her father had
no sight, no voice, no hearing.

Day 406

Tell me where this small child learned
to walk, tell me what his first steps
were like, who held his small hand,
who crouched on the grass, the rug,
the sand, and spread arms
to receive him.  Tell me 
about the grin on his face, the giggle
when he thudded down, the kiss
on his forehead.  Tell me
so I can remind him
through the long years, the long
winter evenings (should we stay alive) 
what it was like to have two legs.
What it was like to stand
steadily on this earth,
kick a ball, climb.

Day 405

Tell the children goodbye every night.
Tell this to them because every night
could be the last night, 
and — if in the first light of day
you open your eyes and see them
still sleeping, their little chests rising 
and falling, their little mouths
open — kiss each one
gently on the forehead,
feel the moisture and warmth
of their living skin, whisper their names
to each one, to summon
their souls back into their 
soft bodies — their souls
that perhaps, in the night, found
grassy meadows to play in, sweet fruit
to taste, cool water to wash
the terror and grief from their faces.

Day 404

He stands on a table
while his mother tries a jacket on him
that she’s making, with shells
she’s found on the beach
for buttons.  The child — maybe
twenty months old — raises his arms
so his mother can pull it off
over his head.  She measures it
carefully, steps back, looks
at her son.  It’s a scene
that could happen anywhere —
a mother seeing if what she’s made
will fit her child, will be snug
enough, soft enough — but this
is happening in a tent, the table
made by a man who was killed, the shells
having to do for buttons since
there are no buttons — This
is happening in an hour
between bombings, in a quiet moment
when the mother remembers
what it has been to be the mother
of her children, when the child
can know he is cared for, held.
No one can say if they’ll live
to see the jacket hemmed, the shells
secured with thread to the fabric.
No one can say if the sleeves
the mother is starting, now, to sew
will keep the child warm
as he dies, will be soaked 
with blood.

Day 403

A boy sits in the dust, playing
with a cat.  The cat leans her head
into the boy’s hand; he strokes her
gently, tenderly.  They are both
so thin, you can see the bones
of his hand and the shape
of the cat’s spine. If these
are their final moments —
in the distance, we know,
there are bombers
approaching — if the last thing
in this world this boy touches
is this cat, at least there is
softness, warmth, affection.
The boy tries to stand, but
he’s too weak.  The cat, too,
lies down:  the effort of friendship
is overwhelming.  The sky darkens,
the planes are closer. Will they walk
out of this life together, child and animal?
Will the dust of their bodies 
mingle with the dust of the ravaged earth?

Day 402

No one can find who this small child
belongs to.  No one
knows her name, or how
she happened to lose her hand.
The family who took her in
from the hospital
has tried every name they know
to see if she shows a response.
So far, nothing.  They’ve named her
for a cousin of theirs who was killed.
Daily they teach her how to live
with one hand and no parents.
Her other hand drifts
in a world of dream and memory.
It knows who she is.  She strokes
her mother’s cheek with it, holds
a strand of her sister’s hair.  At night
it finds her, visits her in her sleep.
Settles in.  Waves goodbye
to everything that’s missing.

Day 401

Once there was a hospital in this place.
There were surgeons, nurses,
operating rooms with lights, instruments.
Once there were patients who came
seeking help, who lay in their beds
and spoke with doctors
who explained what would happen,
who offered medicine.
Once there was medicine for pain
that the medicine made bearable.
Now the hospital has collapsed,
the surgeons’ hands have been crushed, 
the children living in tents
in the hospital courtyard
have been burned alive, are nothing
but ash.  And there is no medicine
that could staunch these wounds,
that could end this pain.