Day 386

In the photograph the children look
like they’ve fallen asleep 
next to each other; as if the adults
are in another room, talking and laughing,
voices speaking over other voices, interrupting,
maybe a tv on, and they’ve all had dinner
and the children have played together
and watched a movie and the hour
has grown late and they all
got tired and fell asleep,
all of them still dressed in their jeans
and t-shirts, the girl with her long hair
fallen over her eyes, the littlest boy
crowded between two older ones,
and soon the adults will come
into the room and throw blankets
over the children and turn out
the lights.  And it will be quiet
again in the house and the moon
will come and shine from the window
and all will sleep
peacefully til morning…But this
is a photograph of children
who died in a bombing, whose blood
(now wiped from their faces)
spilled copiously onto the floor
of the shelter  (no
house, no other room)
where their parents (no
laughter, no voices, no
moon through a window)
also were murdered.

Day 385

(Jabaliya)

They are digging through the rubble
to find the girls, and what they find
is a piece of green t-shirt, a hem
of a dress.  No voice, no crying, no
halting breaths.  A small boy stands
holding his father’s hand, watching
the neighbors who are still alive
dig for his sisters.  No voice, no
crying, his breathing shallow but there.
He’s hoping they’ll find them
and hoping they won’t.  Could there be a room
under the rubble where his sisters sit,
reading the books they’ve read to him?
Have the rugs fallen with the walls
so his sisters have someplace warm
to sleep?

Day 384

How can we take any more, the mother is crying out
in the darkening evening. She is holding
her children’s hands, skeletal hands, more
like the hands of the elderly.  Her children
stand on either side of her, their eyes
blank.  Tears run down her face 
as she names the collapsed house,
the grandparents dead, the friends
dead, the food gone, the water
gone, food parcels
falling on children’s heads,
killing them…How
can we take any more she
cries out again, to whom, to what?
To the sky filled with drones?  The piles
of rubble?  The bodies lying unburied
in the street?  Who is listening?  Who?

Day 383

The three year old was in his grandfather’s arms
until a minute before the sniper fired.  His grandfather
put him down on his little chair and death
took him.  Death took his thin, pale face,
his narrow shoulders, his half-smile.  His grandfather
picked him up, carried him, ran frantically
with the child in his arms, bleeding
from his mouth, his nose.  It was clear
he was dead, but his grandfather ran
with him anyway through charred streets,
past piles of concrete, fallen
blown-out houses.   Death took 
the small boy Sami to join the others,
the ones there are not even coffins for,
the ghost-children lining Death’s 
lightless foul-smelling corridors;
Death took Sami away from his grandfather,  
from arms that held him, faces
that looked with tenderness at his
face, from everything he was learning
about being in this world.  Death
stole him, closed everything
in him that was open, that took in
air, laughter, sunlight.  Death disappeared him.
Hours later, through streets just this side of Death,
his grandfather walks, holding nothing.

Day 382

His grandmother was lively
and talkative, wore sparkly bracelets
on both wrists, kept her white hair
in braids, walked every day to the bakery,
grew herbs in pots on her windowsill.
Now she is bent, bedridden.  Her face
is shrunken, her lips gray.  Her grandson
knows it’s been months
since she’s worn her bracelets.
He is fifteen, but he looks like a ghost.
He sits at the edge of his grandmother’s 
bed, reading to her, while overhead
planes drop their deadly cargo.
A day and a night
of bombings that haven’t stopped.
Once the boy held his grandmother’s hand
as she walked him to school.  Once
she taught him to write his name.
Once they laughed, playing cards.
Now they are waiting, waiting
for the bomb that is meant for them.
If you put on your bracelets, the boy
tells his grandmother, someone 
who finds us will be able to know
this was you…

Day 381

Your hand reaches in the dark
for your child, but he is not there.
What’s left of him is your habit
of reaching for him in your half-sleep:
his small chest moving up and down
as breath expanded it, left it. Then
left it forever.  What filled 
his small body was hunger.  
His cries grew weaker,
then disappeared. In the end
he could barely open his mouth
for you to try to feed him a stem of a plant.
At the end he looked at you as if (you thought)
to apologize for having come, then gone.
He grew lighter and lighter in your arms.
For weeks you carried his defeat, his longing.
Now the weight of his goneness is heavier
than any weight you have known. It
is what lies beside you, what won’t
let you rest.

Day 380

In the hospital courtyard the tents are burning.
A mother and her son lie dead, 
wound together in the shroud of their tent.
What they had been living in
has become their grave.  Their bodies
indistinguishable from one another
except for the gold necklace 
the mother had worn, by which
what remains of her can be identified.
No hands no feet no face no eyes no words.
They will not walk again across the stones.
They will not sit and speak with the others.
Their bodies are merged in death
as they were merged
when the boy was in the womb 
sharing his mother’s blood.   
The sky overhead that was filled with birds
is filled with drones.  The tents burn and burn,
their smoke blurs the October moon.

Day 379

Go and find the place
where you lived your days.
If you look long enough
at the crushed walls, the collapsed
ceilings, you may find one thing
you can take with you, keep
in your pocket:
a stone from a necklace
your daughter wore, a handle of a cup
you drank from, a piece
of broken glass from a window
where you sat and looked out
at the street, the passing seasons.
If you look long enough at the remains
of your life you will find your children
sitting again at the table, your parents
talking to each other at the end
of the day, your wife
tired, just come in
from her work, your grandmother
in her chair in the corner of the room, 
reading or sewing. Why among all these
have you been the survivor? The
one who searches? The teller of stories?

Day 378

A girl had a bird in a cage.
A beautiful bird, a cockatiel.
The cage golden, like a golden bell.
They spoke to each other, the bird
rode on her shoulder, the girl
stroked the bird and smiled
at her; it was clear
they loved each other.
Girl and bird in a tent.  How
they made people smile 
when they walked by.  How
it was clear that whatever
the girl had, she shared 
with the bird:  a morsel
of bread, a slice of fruit.
Did you tell me the bombers
came?  Did you say the bombs
set the tents on fire?  Flames
everywhere, smoke.  The tents
collapsing, everything
turned to ash, and the girl
and her bird: ash.  The golden cage,
its bars melted from the heat, sheltering
nothing but ash.

Day 377

Bodies line the street in Jabaliya.
Children step over them
as they walk, looking for wild greens
to eat.  One of them
sees the father of his friend
lying in the dust, face
half blown off, the one
remaining eye staring up
at everyone who passes.  The child
bends, looks at the man, remembers
how he kicked a ball
down this same street only weeks
ago, over and over, and the kids
kicked it back.  The child
takes off his light jacket, covers
his friend’s father’s face, his neck.
Speaks his name, says goodbye.
Runs a little to catch up
with his brothers.