Endless, random future death by happenstance as Bosnia rediscovers its mines . . . one by one. |
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These Things are SaltedThirty or forty years from now, a young man walkingwith his love, or picking mushrooms, or perhaps with his own young son on his shoulders will lose his legs and lie, a bleeding, helpless wreckage of all his young dreams . . . victim of a mine These things are salted, strewn about with reckless Abandon in the truest meaning of the word by the Johnny Appleseed of land-mines A million here, a million there, lying forever in wait for the step of a wild young deer or this young man What do we tell him, what words are there for the stripping of his land and a life without his legs? That we thought it vital to the murderous revenge of some long-past argument and walked away? Littering the generations not-yet born and making their single misstep a bloody vindication of our own |
This poem is included in Jim Freeman's poetry collection BROKEN PIECES available here in print or as an e-Book in your favorite formats. |