Day 546

The children are given pens,
paper, a teacher
who tells them to draw
whatever they like.  Whole
new packets of colored pens,
neatly ordered, light green
next to dark green, turquoise,
sapphire.  They draw
spreading branches, deep grasses.
The sky.  They draw
what was their world, what isn’t
their world.  They draw flowers,
friendly dogs, bowls
heaped with fruit.  They draw
what they need and can’t have,
what they miss and what
they used to live with.  They draw
as they drew before the bombings,
before the deaths, before 
the rubble.  They are
remaking their neighborhoods, 
their families, their lives. Their energy
returns to them as they
draw, flows
as the vibrant ink flows
from their pens onto the paper.