Her best friend is eight.
Wants to be a soldier
she says. A sadness in her heart showing
through the patina of her disquieted face,
clear brown eyes as deep as ancient Camelot
cast upward in search of an answer
to war.
She worries about everything,
especially this blonde and blue
soldier boy.
She knows the smell of bloodshed.
She has lived this war before–
little old soul packaged in seven years
pale skin, auburn curls, sprinkled a golden gossamer
burgundy lips speaking ancestral prose.
She can tell us our past, but
does not know our future.
She understands, but no longer remembers
how the worst in us returns to earth
in the red blood of children, spilling hatred at our feet
still
we fight the other, words to guns, holy books to missiles
we fight ourselves, words, separation, starvation, deprivation, and guns.
She sees the best in us
comes from love
for the blonde and blue-eyed soldier boy
with the freedom to choose his own way
to fight
for love
with words
or guns.
Naked Poet 