During World War I
For Grandpa Earl McKinley Bradshaw
A limb for a limb, a trunk for a trunk,
Broken bodies under broken trees
Across a land of holes and shells…
And still the artillery fired,
Bombs igniting an inferno Dante never knew—
The nightmare that was.
More men died from tree fall than gunfire,
Branches of weapons old yet new
Still brought the same end.
Dead is dead regardless of how…
And the remaining few do live?
Foreign borne to soil blood knows new yet old;
Wash it now in sanguined mud,
The creosote of millennia burst aflame—
The hatred, the fear, and the passion…
Friends fought beside now gone…
A man deemed enemy wasted,
Human parts flayed bare are seen…
But not…
Can such deep wounds of land or breast
Ever heal again?
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
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