Day 197

The children are running through a meadow.
It’s an April afternoon, a birthday celebration.
They’re dancing, kicking a ball, playing freeze tag.
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow, Duncan wrote,
Though I remembered the Often for years 
As Sometimes, Sometimes I am permitted.
Sometimes I think what if these children
were in Gaza, the same children, and some of them
could be….The girl in the blue dress,
for instance:  her swing on the bat
stronger than the others’, her running, faster.
If she were there….Permitted.  What permission
Would she have?  What would she do
without those swift legs, which are running now
through the meadow, sunlight pouring
through the high unscathed branches of oaks?