Veterans Day

Today men cry for dead soldiers I cry for flowers That will die covering our shame Do not tell me that I do not love For I love my country And weep at canvas villages among the trees Where mothers wring their hands to feed Children left forgotten in our greed. Shall I grow them then To be cut down Adorning man's desolation They went to war not so much for the wrong idea of liberation But it was only chance They could escape the destitution They had known Waking morning after morning waiting to die On some miserable street with the maggot and the fly From a better desperation. There is no malice in those who killed them And they too killed Those they did not know But there is a pain where the cities are tent And the hole in the parent's heart The hole in wives', children's, husband's heart Is a hole made by the emptiness of love I cry because we do not love As strong as we hate ... The way I hate the memory of wars.