The Flowers of War
To the soldier who knows war exists in many ways
The eagles flew against the sky overhead
Constantly circling, awaiting the dead.
And the men far below
With grim faces aglow
Looked up at the omen and began to dread.
The soldiers marched forward without looking back.
Each carried temporary lives in their packs.
Though their weary backs arched
Still they silently marched;
Constantly watchful for fear of attack.
Many soldiers were barely older than mere boys,
But instead of staying safe at home with their toys,
They were given a gun
And were told to have fun
In conquering and killing and other war noise.
Onward they marched in the gathering gloom,
Not knowing if they marched to safety or doom.
All their hopes were laid bare:
Every worry and care
Was discarded, lest emotions construct their tombs.
On the eve of the battle they camped for the night
And even the boldest were wary to fight.
No one whistled a tune,
For they knew that too soon
They would rise to a dawn of foreboding red light.
The morning came fast and the men soon awoke.
Not a single man smiled, not a single man spoke.
Their spirits diminished,
They guessed they were finished
And every soldier reluctantly donned his yoke.
At once someone let out a yell: they were routed;
A bullet was fired, an unnamed man shouted.
Each heart fiercely pounded
As they were surrounded.
The ones who fell first were the ones who had doubted.
Bodies fell to the ground as the battle commenced,
Each soldier lost hope as their forces were fenced.
Every heart full of fear,
Every eye filled with tears
As friends fell around them from lack of defense.
The air had turned thick with the shouts and the blood;
The flowers of war were beginning to bud.
But the soldiers were stern
And recalled what they learned
Before they were all beaten into the mud.
Defending a cause in which no one believed,
Led on by orders which were all ill-conceived,
Swords unsheathed in a whirl
As their banner unfurled;
Every heavy heart present repented and grieved.
Their hopes were all mounting, their courage was showing
As their foe seemed to drown in the blood that was flowing.
But the enemy laughed,
For that blood was a bath
That the enemy used to feed the flowers growing.
As the battle was ending, one soldier survived;
A brave little boy barely older than five.
He too fell in the end
Right beside all his friends:
Not one single soldier was left there alive.
The attackers cheered and went back to their lands
While wiping the blood from their brows and their hands.
They went back to their homes
To write stories and poems
About the group of soldiers killed in their last stand.
Now the place where the soldiers were stabbed and were shot,
Which each living memory quickly forgot,
In just a few hours
Tiny, blood red flowers
Dotted the ground of the burial plot.
And the moral of this story of senseless gore
Like the violent tales we have all heard before,
Is we reap what we sew
In the flowers we grow;
And in beautiful gardens devoid of all woe,
There’s no room or excuse
To inflict such abuse.
Or for the flowers of war.
(2012)
If we were as evolved as we really think we are, there would be no war. We think war is necessary for our own progression. It depletes dangerously high populations, forces now and inventive technology to be created, forms unifications of differences through mutual conflicts, and gives us a sense of pride, history, and national accomplishment. But the need for war proves how far we still have to go, and the fact that all of those things come from war, and we call it beneficial, also proves that point.
