They Fight Like Heroes And Die Like Mortals Poem by Boniface Mukeshimana

For the sake of those they love they forget
Themselves they love. For themselves they will fight,
Crawling in bushes, promotion to get.
They fight as if life is only their right.*
The arteries of their hearts become thorns
Harder than the shrubs that their elbows break,
And their hard hands hold tight the devil’s horns.
They fly o’er hills their foes by necks to take,
And they’d not mind friends those have left behind
As though they mourn not like their kith and kin.
Two old men at a good distance them find
Thinking as if slaying is not a sin.
Have a look at their bodies spread at miles!
They fight like heroes and die like mortals.

Note:

*They fight as if others have no right to life.