Memorial Day

Our children were forced to go to war
So they could pay for college,
With bombs to kill hundreds or more,
But they only found a village.

Hapless villagers prayed to their gods
As they were run off a high ledge;
Our children, chasing, barking like dogs,
“See? This will pay for college!”

And so they marched on Graduation Day,
Their hapless parents cheering;
And village ghosts, like out of Judgment Day,
Around the bleachers peering.

“We’ve come to see the children grown,”
The godless ghosts cried clearly,
To snatch from them the fruit they’d sown,
Tuition in lives paid dearly.

Numb and dumb the graduates were struck in their places,
Wings covered their bodies, crows’ beaks on their faces.
Cawing, hawing, into the sky flapped the murder of crows,
Unmentioned, save in prayers – a silence no memory knows.