Wounded Hope

A poem on the inhumanity of war.

Like animals, savages,

We fight : one against the other.

Bloodied limbs lay coldly against the ground.

Empty shells of ammunition become like grass,

Whizzing bullets become like music,

Loud, cacophonous, belligerent.

 

Soldiers yell commands, rushing  back and forth,

Ducking, aiming, firing,

Contributing to this most tragic symphony of speeding metal.

 

Humanity is lost.

Dignity is sacrificed.

A man is nothing more than a target.

 

Who are they¸you ask?

“Why, they are his family, his children, his friends.

Why, they are the unseen targets of war.

They are the panicking mothers, the crying children, the confused babies

Who will never meet both of their parents.”

But war, you say, is more important.

If not, then why do we fight?

And what is that, you ask?

“Why, that is hope,

Wounded and feeble,

Scarred by the savage man.

 

“But, look! She is trying to fly,

Spreading her ailing black wings to the brilliant sky above.

Her song is painful and labored,

A testament to our civilized incivility.

Slowly, she climbs and climbs into the glimmering air through

The gunsmoke, the tears, and the pain.”

 

Perched on high, she looks down upon us, her human subjects.

“How crudely refined thou art!” she laments,

The pain radiating from her wounded wing.

But, remembering her flight, she does not lose hope.

For, hope is who she is.

Rather, she watches over her disheartening  humanity

With a wounded wing and a compassionate heart.