Poet & Volunteer

Power

I volunteered for a special task today.
Honoured to be considered for it,
but tragically a task that should
not have been necessary.

They arrived this summer,
a truly lovely family,
mother, father, son and daughter.
They had a farm
that was burned to the ground.
What else could they do but flee.
Did well to stay alive.
At the very start of the war
I recall an older woman
in front of her bombed out apartment.
Perplexed she said to a reporter
“What was that for ?”
Indeed well we all should be asking.
What is it for?
The ever abiding question.

Can a better world really be made by
burning and bombing?
The unspeakable horrors on the
ground trumped always by the
rhetoric of blame, excuses and lies.
Endless reasons to kill and maim.
No creature, other than we humans,
kills with such abandon.
Power and control just for its own
sake is the war leaders holy grail; to
be feared, to be obeyed, and to have
people die for you.
They care nothing about the number
of dead or wounded or those left
grieving for loved ones.
Caring is not possible for them.

We have not come very far from
ancient times when armies on
horseback raged across countries
plundering and killing for no other
reason than they could.

We humans are a most curious
species.
We create the most incredible
things;
rockets to take us to the moon,
satellites, high overhead, that
safely guide our movements,
we create music and literature that
can move your soul,
we create complete cures for
diseases once incurable.
But we cannot create peace.

My volunteer task today?
To show son and daughter a safe
cycle route to their new Canadian
school.
Once there faint apprehension
crosses the daughter’s face.
Then, knowing no other choice is
before them, they go inside.

Sadly, I watch them disappear
down the hallways
into a world
they need not have entered.