Combats

Combats

They're fighting now for their control of continents and oceans.
And night and day, the war goes on that taxes all our patience.
The battlefronts are drawn across our land, along our coasts.
They curve upon the rolling plains and cross the mountain hosts.
And every week brings new advance, that's followed by retreat
Or even more advancing, as the pincer-edges meet.
The islands left of foes appear to swiftly melt away,
As bones are gnawed at nighttime and lie bleached by searing day.
The corpses now are everywhere. They rot in wetlands and
Are strewn in withered piles across the fields and shifting sand.

The powers aren't lords that live in palaces and those
Who battle aren't soldiers who're as human as their foes.
The conflict raging is between the roiling airy masses.
The limbs severed are those of trees, of bushes and of grasses.
And those who rot, in regions wet, or wither, where it's dry,
Are worker leaves who toiled and died, for whom no kindred cry.
Yet each was born as tender thing, and grew and lived in beauty,
As soldiers do, who die for naught, although they're told it's duty.
But though the combats rage on scales beyond a human war,
And were and will be past our span, they're better – yes, by far.

2013 Sep.14th, Sat.
Brooklyn