If you were mortally wounded on the battlefield or in a classroom, what would your last fading thoughts and words be?
Mine would probably be.
"Oh God, reach for me."
This is an 18-year-old falling as he is struck by the bullet fired in Fracas 1.
His thoughts and dreams scatter; his life flashes before his eyes as he slips through the fabric of time and space.
This is a poem as it appears in the painting
Sons
My son, your son -
Our children collapsed on the battlefield, a mother’s worst nightmare -
Parents’ worst nightmare -
A terrified son’s despair that cannot be comforted -
A child’s mortal wound that cannot be nursed -
A child cloaked in darkness who cannot be reached -
A cry for help that cannot be answered and will echo for a lifetime -
You will hear in many instances that it is God’s will or a divine test.
Nonsense; wars are never God’s will.
Wars are always the will of a few men -
Misguided men that set nations on paths of destruction -
A few oxytocin-less men and their lieutenants, who bully, cajole, woo, and mesmerize citizenries into acquiescence or silence -
Humanity’s hope is that their warrior mindset will fade with each passing generation.
Still, war is a cunning culture with fortified institutions that self-protect and self-perpetuate -
Brutality is an unambiguous persuader -
Only a few men who use religion, nationalism, ethnicity, greed as pretexts to bolster their hubris and further their ambitions -
Their rhetoric is sweet in the mouth but will singe your belly, breasts and heart -
Their aim is to benefit from your labor of love and the ultimate sacrifice of the child you so tenderly nursed to life -
They build large collections of impressive war toys.
War toys require toy soldiers -
They plot in secret but will come in the light of day with decrees, medals, or promises of virgins and eat your young -
Their predation is in plain sight, yet most of us miss it, choose not to see it, or have been programmed to think that it is something else -
Those few men will tell you that it is the nature of men, but that too is a lie.
It is their nature -
They know that when the friend soldiers fall, anger becomes personal and the firefights will self-energize -
Still yet, where are the voices of those safeguarding the nurseries?
If your voice is not silenced, then raise it.
If your eyes are not blindfolded, then meet their gaze -
Whisper your dreams into your infants’ ears.
Teach them disdain for injustice and oppression -
Teach them to value life and kindness -
© Yvan Lamothe
