Day 396

How will you mourn your child?
She was a small child
squatting in dirt, playing
with stones, making a house
of stones.  Stone table,
stone chairs.  Now
she is not even ashes; 
only a little canvas backpack,
a few little toys, a t-shirt
on the floor of the tent.  How will you 
mourn her when you can’t 
lay her body to rest?
What is she now? A few shards
of bone amid rocks and ruins,
a bloodstain in dust,
a yellow shoe.  How
will you mourn her
when there is nothing
left of her?