Fields

The colorless men

Begin to line up.

Cold steel in their arms—

Hard against their hearts.

To unfamiliar

Anger-filled fields they

March as they try to

Forget the fun fields

They once knew as boys.

Now men, remembering

Those games, they played

In living fields—How the

Grass died so quickly!

Tattered bodies drop—

Stiff—they think of how

They wish this simply

Was a child’s game.

Maybe the fallen

Would soon rise to stand

And the game would then

Be over, the boys

Back in their soft bed.

But their home is now

A backpack—heavy

Not filled with school books,

And tomorrow they

Will march back again.

And they will not catch

Balls in their tired hands,

But bleeding men who

Will never play out

In game fields again.