By Audrey McHugh
Long Island Branch

 

On battlefields of blood

not very long ago,

soldiers marching face to face

were martyred blow by blow.

 

Now cities burned at the stake

are resurrected to remake

a famine field of abundant yields,

harvesting the hearth of home.

 

A handful of dust in desolation,

the wasteland’s day of doom,

mothers with their children gone

who laughed and played at noon.

 

Mourning dawns the winds of war

on the shores of nevermore

and ‘That talent which is death to hide’¹

lodged where many more abide.

 

The rising sun seems unaware

The fallen world’s no longer there.

______

¹John Milton, “On His Blindness”