Day 547

They were shot by snipers.
They were bombed while they slept.
Their bodies were shredded, their limbs
torn, their faces rendered
unrecognizable. They
were set on fire.  Stripped
naked, made to sit naked
on jagged rocks
in the cold, in the rain.  They
were questioned over and over,
told what to say, told
if they didn’t say it
their whole families would be murdered.
Their whole families were murdered.
Young children who played
In the street one day
lay dead the next day in the same street.
They were stabbed, kicked,
buried alive.  And yet they continued.
Yet they helped
one another.  If a family
lost its house, another family
took them in.  If a child
lost her parents, someone else
took care of her, saw her
as their own.  I am
speaking to you
as though these things
were finished, as though
they weren’t happening
now, but happened long ago.
I am telling you this
as though it were history, as though
you had asked me just now,
Tell me how we can understand
the beauty of this place
that our people rebuilt,
the goodness now
of our lives here?