(I don’t pretend to understand much about war, or why we wage it. This isn’t meant to extol war or sing the virtues of aggression. But I could not stop crying as I listened to the stories, and watched the clips on the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS, that told me more than I ever think about on a “normal” day . And for the first time, as I listened to my compatriot, General Colin Powell speak, I thought about how what people I never thought about did, and still do, so I can live an unencumbered and ignorant life. A broken heart once a year is an insufficient price to pay, a piss poor gift to give. It’s like thanks…too little, and mostly too late. But God bless us everyone!)
Whatever you think of war,
Your politics
And righteous indignation
Can never take away
The cost
In human lives —
Both of the dead
And the living —
Nor the pain…
Nor yet the pride
Of service
Beyond patriotism,
Beyond right or wrong,
Beyond who started it,
Or who ended it.
Your politics
And moral outrage
Will never reverse
The gift that lives
Sacrificed to war
Have left us all.
“All gave some,
Some gave all”,
The song says.
On this day of remembrance,
I give my broken heart.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
jamaiquina 