Those Who Have Died.

Those who have died,
Caught in the cross-fire,
Going, or trying to go,
About their daily lives,
Have never known why they died,
Not then, and not now.
That has not changed,
Perhaps it never will.
And collateral damage—
Such a pretty phrase for such
Devastating, mindless deaths—
Has always been part of war.
But those who kill, at least,
Had known, once, why they died,
For land, or wealth, or faith,
Or sheer bloody-minded revenge.
The blank, hateful eyes of these boys,
Seen behind masks or sighting down
The greasy barrels of gleaming guns,
Have only anger in them, and despair,
And a blind, unrelenting hatred,
Do they know why these people have had to die?

(It feels somehow fake and inadequate to write this, because I'm sitting at home, and have never faced such horror. And have no right, perhaps, to try this. But it's all I can do, and I can't not do it. Please gods, let at least some of those people live.)