Earth

Turf, lead, and fire
Ripping through their world
Snatching the light
Thieving their hope
Shredding their souls.
Cannons boom like hearts
Rockets soar with the carnage
Metal flies on Death’s own wings,
Loss never knew such thirst. 

Trenches etched like veins in the European hills
Coursing with men and blood.
Their Earth is their only defense
Shielding them as best She can from the flames
That torch and erode their very existence,
But She can not shut their eyes,
She can not cover their ears.
Though some may not be stolen by Death,
They are marked by His glance
Scarred deeper than light can reach

When the cannons shudder and fall silent
And Death dies on his very field,
They crawl from the mud
Leaving the dead to rot in their foxholes.
The living exist in a state of hollowness
Empty as their spent shell casings.
An entire generation annihilated
The few that were not shot, massacred, and destroyed
Are thrown into the howling winds of the peace time world.
The war began, and so did their end
The war ended, and they were lost.
Their home on Earth had become the trenches
And that is where She desired them to stay:
Soldiers in the mud. Victims in the Earth.