Day 406

Tell me where this small child learned
to walk, tell me what his first steps
were like, who held his small hand,
who crouched on the grass, the rug,
the sand, and spread arms
to receive him.  Tell me 
about the grin on his face, the giggle
when he thudded down, the kiss
on his forehead.  Tell me
so I can remind him
through the long years, the long
winter evenings (should we stay alive) 
what it was like to have two legs.
What it was like to stand
steadily on this earth,
kick a ball, climb.

Day 405

Tell the children goodbye every night.
Tell this to them because every night
could be the last night, 
and — if in the first light of day
you open your eyes and see them
still sleeping, their little chests rising 
and falling, their little mouths
open — kiss each one
gently on the forehead,
feel the moisture and warmth
of their living skin, whisper their names
to each one, to summon
their souls back into their 
soft bodies — their souls
that perhaps, in the night, found
grassy meadows to play in, sweet fruit
to taste, cool water to wash
the terror and grief from their faces.

Day 404

He stands on a table
while his mother tries a jacket on him
that she’s making, with shells
she’s found on the beach
for buttons.  The child — maybe
twenty months old — raises his arms
so his mother can pull it off
over his head.  She measures it
carefully, steps back, looks
at her son.  It’s a scene
that could happen anywhere —
a mother seeing if what she’s made
will fit her child, will be snug
enough, soft enough — but this
is happening in a tent, the table
made by a man who was killed, the shells
having to do for buttons since
there are no buttons — This
is happening in an hour
between bombings, in a quiet moment
when the mother remembers
what it has been to be the mother
of her children, when the child
can know he is cared for, held.
No one can say if they’ll live
to see the jacket hemmed, the shells
secured with thread to the fabric.
No one can say if the sleeves
the mother is starting, now, to sew
will keep the child warm
as he dies, will be soaked 
with blood.

Day 403

A boy sits in the dust, playing
with a cat.  The cat leans her head
into the boy’s hand; he strokes her
gently, tenderly.  They are both
so thin, you can see the bones
of his hand and the shape
of the cat’s spine. If these
are their final moments —
in the distance, we know,
there are bombers
approaching — if the last thing
in this world this boy touches
is this cat, at least there is
softness, warmth, affection.
The boy tries to stand, but
he’s too weak.  The cat, too,
lies down:  the effort of friendship
is overwhelming.  The sky darkens,
the planes are closer. Will they walk
out of this life together, child and animal?
Will the dust of their bodies 
mingle with the dust of the ravaged earth?

Day 402

No one can find who this small child
belongs to.  No one
knows her name, or how
she happened to lose her hand.
The family who took her in
from the hospital
has tried every name they know
to see if she shows a response.
So far, nothing.  They’ve named her
for a cousin of theirs who was killed.
Daily they teach her how to live
with one hand and no parents.
Her other hand drifts
in a world of dream and memory.
It knows who she is.  She strokes
her mother’s cheek with it, holds
a strand of her sister’s hair.  At night
it finds her, visits her in her sleep.
Settles in.  Waves goodbye
to everything that’s missing.

Day 401

Once there was a hospital in this place.
There were surgeons, nurses,
operating rooms with lights, instruments.
Once there were patients who came
seeking help, who lay in their beds
and spoke with doctors
who explained what would happen,
who offered medicine.
Once there was medicine for pain
that the medicine made bearable.
Now the hospital has collapsed,
the surgeons’ hands have been crushed, 
the children living in tents
in the hospital courtyard
have been burned alive, are nothing
but ash.  And there is no medicine
that could staunch these wounds,
that could end this pain.

Day 400

The poet speaks of a mother
dragging her two daughters quickly,
being chased by a tank.  A young man —
the poet — argues with his father
about which kind of plane
is dropping bombs 
on their neighborhood. Night 
illumined by fire.  The children
running as fast as they can, tripping,
the mother picking up the smaller one,
wiping her dusty face 
as she runs.  Explosion
after explosion.  You can feel
(as the poet describes
it) how desperate, how terrified
they are.  No way even
to find the road, so littered
with concrete.  With bodies.
We never see planes in the sky
in Gaza, the poet tells us, except
for the ones that are attacking us.

Day 399

Hard to imagine these children
singing.  Hard to imagine 
their voices strong, a choir
of children’s voices singing
in a large tent with their teacher
conducting.  Listen!  There is joy
in their singing, the joy
of forty, fifty children
singing together on little chairs
in a tent, watching their teacher.
Can they forget for a moment
the dust, the bombings?  Their
missing friends?  Even their hunger?
Daylight shines, opaque,
through the canvas panels.  Late
autumn, the afternoon
bronze-golden.  No one, this
minute, in this tent, seems
in danger of dying.

Day 398

The streets you walked since childhood
are gone.  The buildings
your classes were in, the bakery,
the café where you sat
with your friends for long hours.
The table stacked with sweets
and coffee, the one chair
that wobbled, a leg too short.
They’re gone now:  the chairs, the tables.
The yellow awning.  The cigarettes,
their lit ends punctuating the night.
The friends with their shouting,
their laughter.  What was it 
you’d been talking about?  What
was your side of the argument
that seemed so crucial?  The poet
you liked, whom others didn’t?
A memory someone thought
mistaken?  You’d walk home,
still conjuring responses, 
as a fine rain started falling
and cars with their stippled
headlights turned the corner.
How could all that
have disappeared, become
dust and grief?

Day 397

A cat waits at what was the window
of a house that was her house.
Every night she would greet the man
who was the father of the house.
He would pick her up, he would stroke her.
His hands would run through her fur.
She knew what time he would walk
through the door, what time
he would feed her.  She knew
she would sleep on the bed
beside him when he turned out the lights. 
After the bombing, when
the man was taken to the hospital
and the rest of the family had fled the house
and the dust had settled in the fallen rooms,
the cat emerged from the place she had hidden.
She climbed over the rubble, up to the window
where she had sat every day, waiting for him.
She waits. She waits. Now and then
there’s a mouse to eat, an insect if nothing else.