Day 1,092

Your grandfather’s olive trees
are gone. They are gone
from the field outside
his house, which is also
gone. They are gone
with his love for them,
the tenderness with which
he would hold the first olives
he harvested, look at them,
press them between his fingers,
tell you it was time to go
and bring the buckets, the ladders.
Time to take the olives
from the trees that had birthed them.
Time for your grandfather
to place both his hands
(shattered in a bombing
with the rest of his body,
with your grandmother,
your uncle)
on either side
of your head and tell you
to be still, to
take a moment and see
how beautiful they were,
these olives his trees
had produced; how beautiful
the silver-green leaves
of the trees, the field
they stood in, the sky
above them.