Day 269

Where there is nothing they are making a school.
They are teaching children with books
they are making themselves:  sheaves of paper,
words written by hand.  They are writing
stories to teach the children to read.  The children
sit in a circle.  They sing.  They are given
pencils, they write.  They draw.
One, who cannot remember
the name of his street, and whose parents —
who would have told him — were killed
when the street was bombed — writes the name
of a boy who has become his friend, Mahmoud.
I live on Mahmoud Street, he writes, smiling.
He draws houses, gardens.  A girl
on a bicycle, passing by.  A man and a woman
on the steps of the house he circles, writing
My house.  They are holding the hands of a boy,
one on each side.  Nothing is broken
on Mahmoud Street. The sun
in the left-hand corner of the page
is shining, shining.