WAR and PEACE

Wrote this fifty five years ago for the school magazine.
That war was in Vietnam, my first boyfriend was close to being drafted.
The potential maiming of his beautiful body felt viscerally close.

War
War is futile, useless.  Why
Must people mourn as young men die?
If statesmen thought, instead of fought,
Of all the pleasures simply got,
They’d surely never send a gun
To kill or injure anyone.
War is pointless, useless.  Why
Can statesmen live as young men die?


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Sentiments remain the same nearly a lifetime later.
My best shot (no pun intended) has been to do whatever I can to heal the war within. A lifetime's work.