The day began as a day begins--
With the sun’s first white rays painting the eastern sky.
The silence of earth is the hope of the morning--
Potential to please the ear and the eye.

A puff of black smoke obscured the dome--
A second, a third, an eighth and a ninth.
A screech announces the end of a journey,
Full of souls, full of glass--in the dark of the Night.

Hours progressed, and dawn became morning.
A thump in the distance, a cry not so far.
Now come the sons, the brothers and fathers,
Sporting browns, both rugged and charred.

Clouds shroud the blue as a gray snow falls.
The once green pastures lie wasted from cold.
Grass seeks the light, it pushes up,
But dies in a moment and shrinks to gray mold.

The time was high noon, and the bustle repulsive.
No bird’s song, no sunshine, no gifts of the earth,
The bee made no honey, the garden no fruit.
No one smiled or laughed, for lack of mirth.

Heavy with sorrow, with burdens and tears,
Were the hearts, eyes, and shoulders of mothers and wives.
For loved ones were dying in smoke and in powder,
Consumed in the flames of a wicked fire.

Though burning the earth, the battle continued.
(It would not be quenched until the day finished)
Everyone earned his or her share of stripes
And wore stars on their coats and ink in their wrists.

The sons and fathers marched away then,
Leaving the dust and ashes they strew.
Death filled the air, both silent and heavy.
What hope that remained dying and few.

The quieter front was painted with grays.
What’s left of a sun falls fast in the West.
Count the dead, find the wounded, comfort the lost.
Be at peace this night. Until tomorrow we rest.(poems go here)