Why War

Dear God, why will we war?
Untouched upon this shore,
Yet, we can see the carnage there,
And human corpses everywhere,
Entwined in masses on the street,
The arms, the hands, the fingers, feet,
Embrace in one but dying breath,
To hold each other until death,
Upon some steps, or hill, a grave,
No one is here to stop or stave,
The brutal force that’s here and now,
It robs me of my life somehow,
Before I had a chance to live,
To work, to play, to love, to give,
Just one request I’ll ask for me,
To treat me with such dignity,
Forgive the ones, who pushed me down,
Please dress me in a decent gown,
And bury me with firm decree,
To end this strife eternally,
Dear God, why will we war?
My hope is, “Nevermore!”

Peter Lowell Paulson
May 3, 2012

Note: I was moved by a still photograph in Ken Burn's "The War".  The most terrible part of any war are the innocents who die in the wake of someone else's ideological mayhem.  That is what tears me up, and gets me to ask, "Why, Dear God, why?"