Day 1,043

Umm Atta Al-Nashash

Every day she searches
for the remains of her sons.
Four of them, all
martyred, all buried
somewhere under the rubble.
Four of them. She’s seventy-five.
Tired. Hungry. Every day she combs
the area where they were killed,
looking for anything she can find
that she might hold in her hands:
a fragment of a shirt, a shoe,
some strands of hair. All those years
they were children. Students. Fathers.
All those years they cared for her,
brought her food when she was sick.
Took her to visit the graves of their father,
their grandparents. Laughed with her
at the silliness of their own children.
Where is the son with the beautiful voice?
The son who could fix anything
that was broken? The son
who woke early to tend his garden?
The son who built his own house?
All day she looks for a sign
that they lived in this world.
That they touched the earth. Knew
sunlight, wind, water.  That
they have not disappeared
from this life without leaving a trace.