What do we tell you when we awake tomorrow, little one?

That there once was a dawn that burst upon us with birdsong

That there was a colour we called green, oh so many shades of it

in the forest near the river that used to shimmer with fish tails

 

That the water would chime to us in eternal ebb and flow

high and low notes splashed by the thin oars of a sharp boat

carrying fishnets at daybreak, ferrying children in the dusk

That we broke bread with our neighbours and uttered

a prayer that came easy on our purple lips that would pucker

up for a kiss as we held each other and the night sighed

 

and we thought we would never die.