Poem: These Things are Salted

Endless, random future death by happenstance as Bosnia rediscovers its mines . . . one by one.


These Things are Salted

Thirty or forty years from now, a young man walking
with 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
Poetry Collection: Broken Pieces
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.