Bleecker Street

Not quite sure

How.

…  How

I might explain

The List

of names from yesterday's loss

to an almost seven year old girl, today.

Conversation so layered and loaded

and we've only just discussed families with nowhere to go, 

bad choices made to hurt people,

pollution in China, 

a vanishing island and 

Japanese internment.

She can read now.

And then I see 

Today's Names.

Like rings on a tree, 

each life was a generation -

and they all represented the soul of a country we are lucky

to

Share.

Johnson, Bet-badal, Godoy, Amanios, Kaufman, Bowman,

Velasco, Clayborn, Adams, Thalasinos, 

Nguyen, Espinoza, Meins, Wetzel

There They Are, Lily.  

Do you hear the sounds in their names?

see the sneaky consonants, 

the tricky vowel combinations -

Take a good look at all those names,

they celebrate heritage, harbor hope,

color our world 

and tell us how so many families,

like ours,

most likely all started 

Somewhere

Else.

What is there to destroy in those

Rainbow Names?

She is studying community.

The word rolls off her lips with pride,

hits the T with hear-me aplomb

she is only just seeing its beauty

for the very

first time.

I will someday have to talk this through with her,

though I hope it's not tomorrow.

She's taking in our

Big

Problems
one thought at a time.

But her shoulders are small,

and she loves her Village.

Fog's sure to lift, 

soon enough.  

But for now, (shhhh….)...