A Change In Mind

Lebanon

The web entangles me
in sticky threads of grief
Trapped in my rage
A roar dies in my throat.

I look into that mirror darkly,
Eyes blighted by the horror
Of the reflections I see.
Souls lost in pain and terror
Lives extinguished in a war
that was no choice of theirs
For who would chose war
but the criminally insane?

The bodies of children pile high
In a cataclysmic chasm of the damned
The innocence of their faces tormenting
With undelivered promises of peace.

I cannot watch this.
I chose to run from the
incessant sounds of war
brought into my home
in digitally mastered surround sound
Scurrying to hide myself
from pictures of horrors
A refugee on the road
To no escape.

A single crimson blossom
Falls from the rhododendron
Into the crystalline lake
And I am haunted by
the supercilious voices
of politicians who claim
the moral high ground
with hands as bloody
as that flower staining
the still silent water