Tomorrow

I stood in summer rain watching the pain of my city wash away. The town hall clock that stopped the day the soldiers came groaned back to life, chiming the wrong hour. But we didn't care. Flowers bloomed on cue nodding their heads in approval to the breeze. Children played in once deserted streets, their laughter tinkling like crystal. Dogs barked, cats meowed, birds sang. An old lady lifted the hem of her dress and waltzed to the Strauss in her head. Today we won't count our dead. That we will do tomorrow, in the awful shock of peace.