Day 600

Once this was a street
lined with shops, cafés, small
colorful gardens where people
sat, told one another
about their day, their work,
their children.  Once
at the end of the street
was a school.
You could hear, in early
mornings and late afternoons,
the shouts of children
racing across the yard.
Sometimes you heard them
singing, a group of them
led by their teacher.  You
still think of the songs.  Now
there’s no street, only
a corridor of gray broken rock
people have carved 
through the rubble.  Now
there’s no school, only
a memory of voices
calling to each other
in bright air as you sat
at one of the cafés
greeting your friends,
another ordinary day, sipping
strong coffee.  What
can you name now
that hasn’t disappeared?  You,
a living ghost moving
among the ghosts
of everything you knew.