Playing War
Jan 16 2014


Don't all boys play war?
Sometimes "guns"
or cowboys and Indians
or Russian toughs.
Although Nazis, not so much,

even though they are the perfect bad guys.

Pure evil, after all

must always lose,

notwithstanding

cool uniforms, Hitler salutes.

Any fallen branch
becomes a gun.
Or just a hand,
elbow locked, fingers cocked
a cool eye narrowed.
Where dying is the most fun,

hamming it up, and on-and-on
and death is only so long
according to the agreed upon
rules of war.

Even us
blessed to have grown up here,
in the peaceable kingdom, the frozen north.
With moms who hated guns,
and great uncles, who once

had shot them.

Had fought the good fight, but never talk.

And have that faraway look in their eyes,

still sleepless nights

40 years on.

On TV, I see refugee kids

in barren camps, where they range unschooled
play with such ferocity, and focus
I feel a chill.
Who may very well kill

or be killed

before they'll have come of age
or shaved
or flirted with girls.
Children with Kalashnikovs,
who have only known a world
of well-armed men

and eager boys.

Who learn early, and well

the small difference that divides

enemy, from tribe.

Who are too young

to understand death,
but will die, nevertheless.

Who are proclaimed heroes, and martyrs
then laid to rest
to the rending of garments, the tearing of hair,

ululations

of triumph, and grief.

While angry brothers

stand straight, and stoical,
hysterical mothers

clutch daughters close.

Who will soon be watching
younger sons

playing guns;

powerless
to make them stop.