She whispered, “it is time for me to go”.
So soft, I barely heard her words.
Her fight was gallant; these past few months,
Now she prepared to leave this world.
Each breath was labored; the morphine drip
eased her passage and her pain.
Mom had been there for me all my years.
Now only one of us remains.
Are my tears selfish? I blink them back,
As I hear her death declared
I hope she’s with the angels now
and the God who answered one last prayer.

She had one lesson left to teach;
At the end, be ready, that is all.
I finally let go of her hand,
The hand I’d held since I was small.

Our land was born in Revolution
and we, soon after, went to war
with the children of the redcoats
we had tussled with before

We've battled our close neighbors
and fought a Civil War.
Teddy Roosevelt led the charge
in the bully Spanish war.

When war broke out in Europe
Wilson said we would attend.
His bungled Versailles treaty
caused  World War to come again.

We battled Tojo's forces
and faced the German's might.
We stalemated in Korea
when we were under Dwight.

Always certain of our power
in defense of what is true
we depopulated Vietnam
then, inexplicably , withdrew.

Now we fight a war on terror
a war that has no end.
As I race towards retirement
I'll not see peace again.

Trillions have been wasted
to fuel the cannons roar.
Weep for our poor country-
A prisoner of War.

Consider the locust
who, alone, does no harm,
but devastates the earth
when part of a swarm.
They mass and devour
fruit grain and leaf
without thought of the future;
it beggars belief.

Then sated and full
they all die en mass
as ultimate victims
of their voracious repast.

Consider the human being
who, alone, does no harm...

Our eyes met on the crowded train and we were changed forever.
I was captivated by her smile; she thought my small talk clever.
Our conveyance bucked and rolled through that cold, dark night.
We were locked inside a cattle car; no scenery in sight.

We quickly learned each other’s names and fell in love I fear.
We knew we shared a common faith; the thing that brought us here.
We could not know her time was short. We would not be together.
We spoke of our future, hopefully, and swore we’d love forever.

I have kept that promise, all these years, since she was torn from me.
She died the day we entered here, where “Arbeit Macht Frei .”
I recall the day the Russians came; our German guards had fled.
That precious day salvation came for the living and the dead.
I looked out over the little lake where they’d dumped the Jews’ cremains,
and felt my face wet with bitter tears as I whispered your sweet name.

The great man was in great pain,
beyond the purely physical.
The old lion sat and watched the waves
feeling bereft and miserable.
His mind kept imagining, over and over,
His son, Quentin, in a second rate plane,
turning to dogfight with a squadron of Folkers:
an act gallant and brave, but in vain.
His son’s Nieuport went down behind enemy lines;
The body retrieved from the flames.
He was buried with honors by his erstwhile foes
Who well knew the young pilot's last name.
His aged father wept for the loss of this son
He repeatedly whispered his name.
They say that the father’s spirit died with the news
Afterward he was never the same.

“Be silent, dear child, make not a sound,
lest by Herrod’s soldiers we’ll be found.
No whimper, cry or any small noise;
They have orders to ****** boys.”
I’ve heard your playmates’ mothers scream
as their sons were taken from their arms.
And heard their helpless piteous cries
forced to watch as their dear ones die.
The streets of Bethlehem run red
with nearly every male child dead.
All lie victims of Herod’s fears
Of every prophecy he hears.
I hear a brute’s fist pound our door.
He’ll still my heart ere he strikes yours.”

Five days a week, she dons the mask.
It targets the radiation.
Together with her oral chemotherapy,
it is touted as her salvation.

Perhaps it will buy some time
in the battle against the enemy of her mind.
A forlorn hope is better than none at all.
Perhaps they are being kind.

A beautiful life; she should have sailed bravely on
through the decades and left on her own terms.
Instead, she bravely dons the mask
and suffers while the cancer burns