Day 607

It’s raining.  The rain
penetrates your tent.  When you
were a child you loved rain,
loved the way it cleansed the air,
the sound of rain against
windows, roof.  Now
there are no windows.  No roof.
Now there is only this tent
for your whole family, pitched
in sand, rocked by wind. 
Now the rain
comes in through split seams,
through holes overuse
has made, through the flap
that has never zipped closed.
You lie, trying to sleep, in slowly
pooling water, listening
to the merciless buzz of drones
beneath the unrelenting rain.
Somewhere not far from you
an explosion pierces the night.
Whose tent? You hear screaming. 
Children, too,
screaming.  Then the buzzing
subsides, the screaming
stops. A life —
lives? — taken.  All
you can hear again now
is the sound of rain.