Enduring freedom: Falluja in Charlbury Part 3 

Enduring “Freedom”

Led bellied blackness
Heavy rain
Clouds rushing westward
Bombing through my lovely countryside

They are born out of the eye
Of a most savage storm
How they oppress
Oppress
My life
My world
My Wychwood forest
A dreadful mess

This is no battlefield
Only fox and pheasant are slaughtered here
Yet
I am
And we are all
Among the fallen

With faltering steps, we stumble forward
Bewildered
Stammering
The forces of a vengeful biosphere
Like an evil empire’s army
Have swept with awesome power through these trees

Now the storm has left us
We struggle through this smashed down landscape
Sycamores, like unarmed soldiers
Hacked off at the knees

We can find our way safe homeward
This is not Falluja
This was not the will of Man
I try to comprehend
The annihilation of a city
And the suffering of its people
I witness
What I can