Day 210

In the long afternoon, two sisters
are looking for birds.  This happens
while bombs fall on their neighborhood.
One still has her binoculars, the other
carries a small, worn notebook.
They have done this for years:
scouted for birds, named them,
documented time, place, season.
Do birds still fly when the air
is filled with warplanes?
What do they do when the trees
they nested in have been destroyed?
How do they find their way
from places where life
is as it was, to this ravaged land
with no familiar markers? Two birds cross,
dividing blue from blue.  If the sisters don’t look
straight ahead at the fallen city, 
they can almost pretend the birds
will lead their way home.