destruction – Page 2 – Nancy Wood Literary Trust

The death of children amidst the cross fire of ideas is evil’s

grandest gesture. Not even the loss of love nor a

summer without flowers creates a grief as deep

As the theft of children’s laughter. No horror speaks as loudly

as the final cries of children, who, like birds,

seek to spread their wings even when the sky bleeds

Dead dreams. In these dark moments, the Earth’s great heart

Stops beating. In the void that evil leaves behind, a question

arises: If fools make war on innocence,

then who becomes grief’s companion?

A single shaft of sunlight, falling on a drop of blood. A bird

rising higher than danger. A blade of grass, defiantly green

after fire wipes clean the face of desire. But most of all,

Music created by children’s tears.

The forest was an ancient tangle, so dense that whispers

could not be heard between the leaves, so tall

That birds became caught in branches and never reached

the sunlight, but spent their lives in the twilight

Layer where moss hung like ropes and the mist of ages

clung thickly to the air. Trees grew like sentinels

To history, older than animals, birds, or fish ever dreamed

of becoming when they were young and believed

That life would last forever. Those trees knew forever meant

long centuries of observation of weather, birds,

And animals, also ferns and moss, the sliding nature of

rocks embedded in mud and the temperament of snails.

Those trees grew up knowing all about one another, side by

side in a moss-green light, comforted by wind trying

To get between them and by rain falling in vertical shafts

anxious to penetrate their dry roots.

Those trees were necessary for balance, harmony, and beauty

in the world. All the animals and birds knew their importance

And spent their days and nights honoring their existence. Then brazen

people came and looked at the trees with calculating eyes.

They built roads and trails, then they cut them down, those ancient,

peaceful ones.

The trees fell gracefully, according to their nature,

one by one, with moans heard by birds and snails,

While in the river fish hid in dark pools. As the trees fell

they said: We bore witness to our time and

Each of you shall bear witness to a different time. Then,

where each tree fell, a child of destruction sprang up.

Grief’s Companion: War – November 2017