Lit eZine Vol 10 | p-9 | POETRY | When Soldiers Come

SHORT POEM

WHEN SOLDIERS COME
Short Poem by John Grey

Soldiers come to the village
just as the fires go out
and all inside their huts are sleeping.
The men are soft-footed, like jaguars,
leave it to the occasional twig crunch
to describe their small army.


They've trudged so long,
they don't know mission from fatigue,
their superiors from
the monkeys chirping in the canopy.


A woman in her bed-sheets stirs,
senses someone outside, cries out.
The first sign of life
is like a weapon pointed
at these combatants from the dark.
Their leader flings open the hut door.


For an hour they drink,
bum cigarettes from the woman's husband,
sit and chat,
as she retreats into the far corner
of the shanty, clutching her newborn,
singing it to sleep.


It could have just as easily
been a night for opening fire,
and killing everyone in sight.


For in the heat, in the weariness,
in the war of no clear purpose,
the victims are neither enemy nor friend.
Nor are the survivors.


They're just someone in the moment.
A moment not their own.