War Or Peace Poem by Liilia Talts Morrison

How slowly and how surely do
those memories return
of days and nights when running
was everyone's concern

It was a time of fleeing
the cruel jaws of war
as bridges fell and none could tell
who would survive the gore

So many fell to shrapnel wounds
and others to the guns
while sickness and the lack of food
brought down young mothers sons

Who can forget the orange sun
of evening as it turned
to flames of hell mixed in with clouds
as towns and cities burned

Old men and women who had never left
their little hearth and home
were flushed like garbage from their nests
and aimlessly to roam

The lucky ones who have survived
the mayhem of a war
though they may live in peace for years
they're marked forevermore

How slowly and how surely do
those memories return
of days and nights when running
was everyone's concern.