[1] Signs along roads and pathways for fireworks, pet food, shoes, hair removal, hair grafting (persumably not from the same bodily location) highway exits, end times.

[2] A letter with news of a woman about to give birth to the music of shellfire. And if that infant lives, god willing, to be a woman herself, will she feel, I wonder, the muffled thuds of shells landing when her baby in turn kicks?

[3] A bird at the new feeder, first one I have seen, shy & tentative in the dusk-dark. A dove perhaps. A dove I hope it is.

[4] The compassionate one said, "With all your might and soul cotemplate the moment of your own death." Then perhaps, it will come, that for which we wait all our lives: a rain drop of uncorrupted love.

I thought, by banning myself from looking at news or newspapers, I will be able to avoid the ganshing of teeth over there, till I got the following bits from a really sweet lady I know here, who is visiting family:

Thank you. It is really good to be with my family but I can't wait to go back to America. We were visiting M, F's sister, in Nazareth today. We were talking about Katyusha rockets when we heard a loud boom. The walls and windows shook. We ran to an interior room. Then a few minutes later F, P and M's father-in-law went outside and took some pictues. About 400 to 500 people gathered to help, and out of curiosity. A Mazda repair shop was hit by the rocket, and they report that three people were killed. M is eight months pregnant, and she was really shaken and crying. It took us a while to get out of the city. We are at F's parents now, and we can hear shelling in the distance.

Love, N

Two emails in one morning: one celebrating the arrival of a baby girl into a marriage, and the other expressing resignation at the dissolution of a marriage. How close elation stands in relation to disappointment today!