Day 954

He had an uncle
who used to take him to the beach
to fly kites.  A young uncle,
an uncle who might have been
his older brother.  They would run
on the sand, looking out
at the endless water, their two kites
weaving and dipping, sometimes
tangled together, then pulled back
so they could untangle them, then
flying free again.  He had an uncle
who told him (one afternoon
flying his kite) that he wanted
more than anything to swim
out into that endless sea
until he could reach a place
where no one lived under occupation,
where people were as free as the gulls
who themselves dipped and wove
between their kites.  There, his uncle
had told him, he would be able
to do all the things he dreamed
of doing.  The boy now, standing
on that beach alone, wonders
whether the place his uncle went to
when he was martyred
has that same sky, those same gulls.
Whether his uncle is playing ball,
racing down vibrant streets
with his friends.  Whether his uncle’s
tall young body,
that was shattered in fragments,
has been made whole again.