Upon the Wounded Earth

She wandered the gradient brown terrain

of the city's century old cemetery

where valiant from so many generations of their youth

laid in earthen sod of sacrifice's seeds,

mind numb and listless while gazing

at the letters on the headstones

from all the faces she had lost to battles,

each promised by the generals

to be the one bringing final victory.

Refusing to let the steady drizzle

deter the mournful steps across the matted cold grass

where her mind imagined in the silent day

all the voices of martyrs sleeping in their graves.

Artillery boomed from the border

only five miles away,

a reminder that the war,

which had bled her nation of its vigor,

was not a noble quest for peace as promised,

but a gridlock of wills, the clash of ideals

between the politicians of two nations.

What course they had plotted,

had never brought an end to the horror

not in any way stopped the injustice,

life for widows and orphans had gone where it always descends

when arrogance and vanity had been touted at patriotism,

unconcerned the consequences other than to their own needs.

Over her shoulder she heard the drums beating

as another regiment of new anointed soldiers

pounded their boots in cadence towards the battlefield

just as her husband and sons had done.

Would their fate end with cotton gauze as medal?

Could tomorrow come without more sobs of mothers losing children?

It was  a question those in charge never seem to ask

who only cared to measure the merits of their lethal ambitions

by how far the shadow of their flag stretch

upon the wounded earth.