The Coming and Passing of Wars

The Coming and Passing of Wars - May 1945

Like the turning of seasons
when in winter we cannot imagine being warm,
a distant memory, like childhood and innocence
the days that seemed impossible to see again
have returned

The guns and the killing and the madness have stopped
it's no longer normal to take aim and shoot at a stranger
misery is not celebrated, torture not excused, pity not mocked
and dazed, we think of peacetime problems again
and the time of blood and winter snows
seems like a long dark dream that never really was

except for the dead, the wounded, the killers, and the widows

And we ask ourselves
as our children will surely wondringly ask us
what was it all for?
was there not another way?
will the winter snows come again?