she whispered to her, in quiet tones of Hebrew, as they approached the art table..

---

Today was the closest I’d been to war

And I saw it in the eyes of a mother and her daughter

Both from Israel, they’d left a few weeks prior to flee

To stay with family

She had her hand pressed to her chest,

And as her daughter sat quietly,

Swiping a paintbrush across her paper

The mothers’ eyes searched for the english words

To describe what she’d seen

What she’d heard

The women there, she told me

Have dreams

Of their children getting killed

Of their home being broken into

Of the screams

Her friends there, she told me

Are stuck

Stuck
“And you can hear the bombs, the sirens,”

It’s frightening, she said

Frightening. 

It was the closest I’d been to war.

And my eyes weren’t scanning,

Through comments

Through posts

Through shared stories

They were locked on a womans

Who was now hunched over the table, 

Painting a picture

And I was painting my own.

“My light,” She said, gesturing up the fluorescents inside the building

It was what she named her daughter
“My light, my world.”

And she kissed her forehead

---