War of the People
By Kristina England
“See, Damascus will no longer be a city
but will become a heap of ruins.” – Isaiah 17
A woman and child wake to their own ghosts,
whole families leveled by barrel bombs,
their ruins scattered through the news.
Aleppo today, Damascus tomorrow.
Or was it Damascus yesterday?
It’s so hard to keep track
of the plights for redemption,
revenge, terrorism,
whatever we’re calling it these days.
Bodies are piling up on every continent,
the definition of justice
different from one mind to the next.
A woman writes to the Boston Globe,
says she found no relief in the execution
of the men that murdered her father.
Does anyone find peace in death?
Surely, Lady MacBeth summed it up
with the her rubbing of hands
to cleanse herself of this human condition
that allows us to make irreversible mistakes.
Damascus will fall.
We all fall once in our lives.
It’s whether or not we can see
the sun through the smoke,
whether we can rebuild ourselves
or if we’ll continue with this looking back,
this turning our souls to salt.
Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction has been published in Gargoyle, New Verse News, Tipton Poetry Journal and other magazines.
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