Day 276

I want to send you this day —
the tall trees, the fragrant air,
the river webbed with light —
you who are, unfathomably,
still alive.  You who — nine times
in nine months — have been
displaced.  I want to give you
the sound of the current, the small
leaves stirred by a breeze.  I want
you to know, even
in a dream, this sweetness:  you
who, as I write, are sleeping in some
makeshift tent, half wishing
for death to take your children
so they won’t keep crying
from fear, from hunger.