Day 593

A few grains of rice.  Canned lentils.
How long can a child of four
live on these?  How long
can she survive when the rice
is boiled in foul water?  When 
foul water is all
she has to drink?  You tell her
to sleep.  You tell her
to save her energy.  You see her
sitting outside the tent, sifting sand
through her small, weak fingers.
trying to build a hill out of sand,
but the sand slides down, down
and down, and her hill
will not stand.  And she
is too weak to stand, too weak
to withstand not being able
to make her hill, and she starts
crying now for her father
who was killed, her three brothers
killed, her infant sister
who died of hunger, for the sky
that used to be clear of warplanes,
for the hill she is trying
to make out of sand
that keeps falling, falling.