Once the bombs fall
and the sky grows heavy with fireworks
you'll never see beauty again

Forests no longer bleed green
laughter does not echo
childish games become war exercises.

There is a darkened need
to overwhelm neighbor,
friends, enemies.

Only scorched earth remains
charred memory on your boots
as the taste of yesterday fades.

There is only advance, advance---
when footsteps fall, marching on
and it is the nothing that is shared by all.