War Is Hell

Some of us were born
in the trenches,
secrets were
the barbed spirals red,
honour and blood.
If you could make it through,
there was a minefield
waiting beyond.

There in the stench you watched
as comrades disappeared, dead
or deep within their wounds,
and you decided to survive
by the grace of gods or
your own gonads.

In the mud of memories
you crawled,
asking to be suckled,
oh Mother, oh Mother,
help me to live,
love me, please.

There you saw her,
there on your belly
tasting blood, she gave you
the tiniest of wildflowers,
uncrushed by battling boots,
uncrushed and content
in its being,
in its being.

You can slake your thirst,
even in Hell and a battlefield,
after all is said and done,
is still a meadow passed-through.
Some of us found a path
made by tiny wildflowers
between buried mines and
that which was our enemy
welcomed us home.