Day 401

Once there was a hospital in this place.
There were surgeons, nurses,
operating rooms with lights, instruments.
Once there were patients who came
seeking help, who lay in their beds
and spoke with doctors
who explained what would happen,
who offered medicine.
Once there was medicine for pain
that the medicine made bearable.
Now the hospital has collapsed,
the surgeons’ hands have been crushed, 
the children living in tents
in the hospital courtyard
have been burned alive, are nothing
but ash.  And there is no medicine
that could staunch these wounds,
that could end this pain.