A dark moonless night,
Envelopes and hides the field.
The puddles upon the ground,
Have lost their crimson hue.
The twisted stiffened bodies,
Hidden within deep shadows.

His perch atop the Bell Tower
A lofty lonely isle amid,
A sea of waste and destruction.
His filthy hands still griping
His instrument of death,
His eye straining at the glass
Searching for movement
In the silent depths of death below,
Finger on the trigger.

Three days have come and gone,
Since he climbed those stairs
And took his place among
The pigeons’ and rafters.
He had been a mere boy of
Seventeen three long days ago.
Now he felt a hundred sick,
And tired years old.
And even the pigeons had
Deserted him,
Or been shot to pieces,
From below.

His fingers took inventory,
Only sixteen rounds remained.
He had fired his weapon
Over ninety times and
Never once, had he missed.
Haunting ****** pictures,
Of their devastation continuously
Replayed in his head.

An hour ago he heard
Its treads and engine
Churning in the dark.
The tank had come for him,
Would **** him at first light.

Strangely he felt no fear,
Resigned and willing,
To make of this,
His end final and fitting.
Grown to a man and dead,
All within four days span.


Postscript:
It is a tragedy that any man of any age
is compelled to make that climb, to fire
a weapon, to take a life, to give up his
own. Wars are an abomination.
And sadly it seems mankind will
never understand that.
Somehow we always find another reason.