Day 369

Trees felled, fields where eggplant grew
savaged, burned.  Two brothers walk a whole day
from where they are staying to where they lived,
look over the land, unrecognizable.
What they see there is what they remember
and what they have lost.  What they are looking for
is something they can’t name, not even
to each other.  One bends to pick up a stone.
The other watches him, looks at the stone
his brother holds in his hand.  Feels
its weight, its smoothness.  With a stone
like this, we could start building a city,
one brother says.  And the other — the one
holding the stone — bends to pick up 
a second stone, places it
in his brother’s palm, looks
into his eyes. They are our mother
and father, he says.  The brothers stand,
look out toward where the field ends,
see for a moment the house they lived in,
the street that was crowded with people, sounds.