Day 517/Ceasefire Day 47

He sits alone on a pile of rocks.
There was a house here.  It was filled
with books, children, laughter,
arguments, music.  He has returned
alone, to find nothing. Nothing
to build with, nothing to shelter him.
He has walked all this way.
Once he was somebody’s father,
somebody’s brother, somebody’s
husband, somebody’s teacher.  Somebody
who sat in a café with friends
and told long stories about his day,
his family, his childhood, his grandfather.
Now he asks what a day is made of.
Now he cannot remember the shapes
of the trees of his childhood, how he sat
for hours in their welcoming branches.
Plucked their ripe or ripening fruit. Ate.