Day 542

The mother is being held
by others — her sister? her brother? —
as she walks to bury her son.  She 
is wailing, sobbing.  Her other children
walk with her, heads down, silent.
Why?  Why?  What reason
could anyone give? This son,
this young man, her eldest.  Her
firstborn.  All
he might have done, all
he might have said.  The years
he might have had, the work
he might have offered.  His mother
walks, barely able to move
one leg, then the other.  She
is carrying the weight
of her son, though others
have borne his body
to the gravesite.  She is carrying
the weight of all his days
unspoken, unrecorded, unlived.

Day 541

The boy, sixteen, wounded
in an airstrike, was put back together
by a surgeon.  He was recovering,
about to be sent home.  He would
have been cared for, rested, come
back to health.  To himself.  The surgeon,
from another country, risking
his own life to be there, stands,
desolate, in what remains
of the hospital.  He would have
lived a normal life, he is saying
about the boy.  But now
he’s dead.  Dead
with his young hopes
for his life.  Dead 
with his body, perfectly
repaired, strong, healing.
The doctor’s skill, his care,
his joy at the boy’s recovery —
they accompany the boy
to the grave, where his young,
perfect body —
whole again with the surgeon’s
work, then crushed again —
will lie for the rest of what
would have been his normal life
and then forever.  

Day 540

from a photograph

It’s Eid
and the children have been given
new clothes!  The sister and brother —
maybe five and seven? — stand,
a little awkwardly, not yet used
to the feel of clean cotton jeans,
ironed new shirts, black
shoes with shiny rubber soles —
the boy’s laces not yet tied. The girl
has a light checkered jacket,
too big around the shoulders; the boy,
a long-sleeved gray t-shirt.  They stand
so proudly, looking straight
at the camera, having thanked
whoever it is who has managed
to get these clothes to them
from far away.  Who knows
what they have lost; who knows
how many times they have had
to move, to walk for hours.  Who knows
who is alive to help the boy learn
to tie his laces, how many months
of healthy food  
it will take for the girl
to grow into her jacket. May these clothes
never be soaked in blood. May they
get dirty with the dirt of running,
climbing.  May they be worn
until these children’s arms
are too long for the sleeves, 
until the shoes have holes
from toes growing longer, longer.

Day 539

Walk down to the place
where your school used to be.
Nothing now but crushed stones,
blasted walls, now and again
the shard of a chair, a desk.
Ghost school.  Phantom school.
Sit on a pile of rubble,
imagine yourself
in a classroom.  Someone
beside you — your friend,
the one you’ve known forever —
furiously writing notes, determined
to remember the whole lecture, as
though her life depended on it.
Maybe it did; though you can’t
ask her now.  Can’t ask her
ever again.  Her long fingers
holding a pen, toes curled
inside her shoes.  You can hear
the tick-tick of the words
she’s writing.  Words you will
never see.  Though now,
if you close your eyes 
so the ruins of your city
don’t stretch before you,
you can see the professor
lecturing, one hand in and out
of the pocket of his jacket, the other
circling the air, making
his point.  All the students
alive and watching
with rapt attention.

Day 538

A team of children plays soccer
in a charred, dusty field
on an afternoon saturated
with the stench of death.  A team
of children running, tossing
the ball from the goal, the sidelines —
each with a missing leg,
a missing arm.  And this
is not a dream, my
dream;  not a vision,
but a true thing:  they have been given
what artificial limbs there are,
they’ve been taught
it’s possible to play, to fall,
to stand back up.  They’ve learned
through these months
that loss is not all
there is; that the joy
of kicking a ball down a field
can still exist, that — if your leg
is gone, your arm
is gone, your father is gone,
your brother is gone — still
you can have this spring afternoon,
this thrill of watching the ball —
your ball! — hit the net
of the goal.  These points
mounting until the game is done
and you walk off the field,
your one arm around a friend’s
shoulder, tired and smiling.

Day 537

In memory of Hossam Shabat, assassinated March 24, 2025

Do not stop telling our story:
his last report, final
plea to us: Never
stop.  His body pulled out
of the exploded car, streaked
with his blood.  Bathed
in his own blood.  Never stop!
This is who we are.  This
is how we lived.  These
were the forces
that shaped us, carried us.
There were the names
of our children, our villages.
Tell the story! tell every story
there is, each person
a universe, each child
a crossroads of stories.
We live as long
as the stories are told.
Like a river we continue, the current
strong, now slower, now
strong again.  But never stopping.

Day 536

The starving body
first eats its own muscles.  Then
moves to the vital
organs:  heart.  Kidneys. Liver.
The brain starts lacking
what it needs
to think, even to feel.
Everything begins to slow:
this is why you can’t
stand, run — even
think of running! — out of the tent
when night falls
with its big explosions.
Your arms, your legs
start to ache relentlessly.
Your head aches, your stomach.
Ultimately the body
resigns itself, acquiesces, slips
without struggle
into death’s jaws.  Body
that should have carried its spirit
through years, through love
and work, through seasons,
weathers.  Body
that should have danced,
leapt fences, tossed
balls — instead
lies down.  Surrenders.

Day 535

The games will be played
that you couldn’t play, littlest
sister, shot in the back
by a sniper’s bullet.  The songs
will be sung that you
couldn’t sing, the dances
danced; the words
you were only beginning
to speak will be spoken,
now, by others.  Littlest sister,
with hands so small
they couldn’t hold
a shovel, a kettle, a pot.
Littlest sister, who wanted to learn
everything we knew:  we
will lay your tiny body
in the earth, cover it
with flowers and debris, 
with shards of bone, of
the city; with the smell
of jasmine and rot.  With everything
you knew, everything you
can take away from this life.
Our resolve, our resistance,
will be for you.  And at moments
we’ll be surprised by a slender weight
that stops for a moment
on our shoulders:
as though a butterfly
had landed there, or a small bird.

Day 534

The girl was always afraid
that her brother, sick from birth
with a heart defect,
would soon die.  Would die
before he had a chance
to work, study, be a father.
Never did she imagine that she
would be chosen by death
before him.  Never
did she imagine
the sniper’s bullet, the tent
shot through with holes, the long
night of explosions and screams.
Then she was dead, and her brother
weak, but still living, thinking
the one consolation 
was that his sister never  
had to grieve him. Then he too
stopped breathing, though quietly,
as though he’d slipped through
when the door was only
slightly ajar — almost unnoticed? —
to be near his sister again, from whom,
in this life, he’d been inseparable.

Day 533

In the dust, children are drawing.
They are drawing with sticks,
with their fingers.  One draws a house:
someone’s face in a window, a tall
stick figure outside, surrounded
by smaller ones.  A father
and his children?  Another child
draws two cats eating.  Another
is drawing a garden:  rows of flowers,
melons, squash.  Above it, a sun
whose rays stand out in all
directions:  shining.  Shining.
The children are drawing all afternoon.
The adults come and watch 
now and then, but don’t
say anything.  They know
the children are aware 
that — in a matter
of hours? — their drawings
will be erased
by rain, blown away
by wind, destroyed
by bombing.  They know
the children know this,
even as they trace their
careful, skillful lines
in the dust:  stopping,
looking, correcting.