War and Peace

One of the things that brought me back to writing was a card. Whenever I receive a card be it christmas, birthday, erotic love poems or otherwise I put them into the same drawer in my room.

Every couple years I clean out this drawer as it gets full, recently (just after my birthday) I grabbed all the cards and put them on the floor and got rid of lots of them. I held onto a few, those that stirred me when I read them again and the rest went into the trash. One such card was for winning a poetry contest back in Grade 12 at my high school. There was a contest on who could write the best Remembrance Day poem and a teacher of mine (one of my earliest and biggest fans) said I should enter.

Now poetry is not my thing, this is probably one of ten poems I have ever written in my life and certainly the only one I am happy with. I guess there are too many amateur poets out there and I have read too many bad poems that all said the same thing to be interested in writing them. Don't take that as a knock against poetry because I do love reading a truly good poem, however a lot of the new material I encounter is crap. Straight up. With all of this in mind, Remembrance Day and patriotism are two things that are important to me and this was at probably the most creative time of my life so I tried my hand at a poem.

I am about to share that poem with you Fearless Reader but first let me finish my story about 'the card.' I entered this poem into the contest and it won. When my family had heard the news they did something special for me, they did some writing of their own, in a card and their words inspired me. I know that no matter what, I will always have some Fearless Reader's out there and that warms my heart. But it is truly special to receive comments and especially positive feedback from your loved ones about something that is near and dear to you. I re-read that card not long ago, it was one of the things that has brought me back from the dead. Now here is the poem as promised, I hope you enjoy it.

War and Peace

The dust has settled, and the smoke has cleared,

the fires have been extinguished, and the rubble has been removed,

the buildings are rebuilt, and the crops resown.

Is this peace?

Because our cities aren't in ruin?

Because our sons aren't off to war?

Because our houses stand, unravaged by the horrors that we have forgotten?

Has the world really changed that much?

War to peace. Impossible.

Fight to keep peace;

the irony defeats the practicality.

The irony is:

Sublime.

Somewhere, a mother's son is at war,

Somewhere, smoke rises above the smoldering carcass of a town,

Somewhere, a family sleeps in the street because their house no longer stands,

Somewhere, mines lay slumbering and ambushes wait,

Somewhere, there is a war raging.

Tearing a hole in the blanket of peace we thought covered the world.

And as the bullets fly, and the bombs drop, and the sons die.

Somewhere far away from our homes;

we are smug enough, naive enough to believe,

that there is peace.