The Silent Minority
Seen from a small Vermont roadside, late September
Labels: iraqi war veteran memorial, vermont remembers american military killed in iraq war
posted by rangeragainstwar at 4:23 PM
Thursday, October 30, 2008
4 Comments:
A waste--Afghanistan, too, as well.
The End and the Beginning
by Wislawa Szmborska
After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the sides of the road,
so the corpse-laden wagons can pass.
Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa-springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.
Someone must drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone must glaze a window,
rehang a door.
Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.
Again we'll need bridges
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.
Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls how it was.
Someone listens
and nods with unsevered head.
Yet others milling about
already find it dull.
From behind the bush
sometimes someone still unearths
rust-eaten arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.
Those who knew
what was going on here
must give way to
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.
In the grass which has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out,
blade of grass in his mouth,
gazing at the clouds.
Dale,
Szmborska is wonderful, and she knows of what she speaks. The utter waste, misery, repetition and futility of it all. Thank you, for her poem gives one of the best comments on war.
The Sleeper in the Valley
There’s a recess in the greenery, where the river sings
Tangling wildly in the tattered grass
Silvery; where the sun from the proud mountain
Glimmers; It’s a little valley that sparkles with light.
A young soldier, mouth open, head bare,
And nape bathing in the cool blue cresses
Sleeping; he’s spread out on the grass, under the clouds,
Pale on his green bed where the light rains down.
Feet in the gladiolas, he sleeps. Smiling like
A sick child would smile, he dozes.
Warmly lull him Nature, he’s cold.
The scents no longer make his nose quiver
He sleeps in the sun, hand on his chest
Tranquil, he has two red holes on his right side
- Arthur Rimbaud
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