Sunflowers

When does it all end?

The rubble gleams dark crimson

With the blood of citizens

Who never agreed to be martyrs.

The ghostly wail of crying children

Still permeates the wintery silence.

Snow drifts down onto tear-streaked faces

Covering the bodies like makeshift shrouds.

Courage is a nation standing up to tyranny

Bravery is a leader joining the resistance

Moxie is a woman telling opposing soldiers

To hold sunflower seeds so they may grow from their corpses.

The demagogues across the ocean are spoiled

Never knowing the taste of real war

Of having to defend their cities from actual tyranny

Of having to fight to stay alive.

This isn't a war of ideology

It's a conflict of greed and imperialistic depravity

Predicated on ludicrous notions

Of entitlement to neighboring territories.

Democracy falls when dictators rise

Freedom is relative to those in prison cells

Peace times are not guaranteed but fought for

Time and time again, history repeats itself.

You are not immune from the fallout

Regardless of your distance from ground zero.

Those preaching from first-world countries about fighting for freedom

Conveniently ignore the efforts to suppress human rights at home.

Our own tyrants make the war about racial purity

Singing the same damn fascist hymn that only lasts until it kills itself.

Authoritarianism is not sustainable,

Nor is it a means to justify an end.

When the shrapnel flies

When the bullets pierce the drywall and bricks

We will watch in horror on the other side of the television screen

While the victims suffer in the reality.

Will this escalate into a third world war?

Will oligarchs and despots go unpunished?

Time will only tell.

Until then, we wait in tearful silence

Until the sunflowers bloom.