There is much ado about guns
and
cannons and then nothing.
There
are troops and last-minute marriages
and
lingering farewells at a train station,
fingertips
touching vanishing fingertips
as
the passenger car slides away
to
a wave of tears and uneasy applause.
And
then there is a great sigh of relief,
the
return to the hometown or the farm,
afternoon
naps on a sagging porch,
eyes
sequestered by a floppy hat
to
keep away gnats and dreams of shell shock.
And
in between lies the truth, lies everything.
Everything—the
day’s stock-in-trade—keeps it all going.
It’s
how war begets peace, how peace gives birth to war.
Swords
become plowshares, plowshares become swords.
To
everything there is a season.
The
old man polishes the long barrel of a carbine.
The
young man enters No Man’s Land
in
a war, they said, that would end all wars.
~William Hammett
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