We are not at War

 

We are not at war.

1914 Unspeakable destruction, death, and the draining of our lifeblood.

Limbs torn asunder and men broken in mind and body.

Confined to mud-filled trenches, waiting for the start or finish of life.

The enemy watching for our advance but there were no winners.

 

2020 The enemy is hidden all around us.

Fear is palpable and no soldier or general is immune from the silent attack,

No one is safe and the front line has moved.

The generals would have you believe the NHS staff are soldiers of WW3,

Under resourced, they give tender care to those drowning in forbidden wards,

Like aliens they move slowly around, offering their love and weary limbs to the fallen,  

They strain to hold back the overwhelming tide of those who did not ask to die.

Sorrow haunts a whole nation as we watch the death toll rise and look for answers that do not come.

 

I despair because we are fighting on many fronts.

This disease is waiting around every corner, yet we are not as one.

Our generals break the rules and dither.

Our brothers and sisters defy common sense and lay siege to our lives.

Shelves are emptied and the most vulnerable go without.

 

No firing squads now because we know better.

Men ran from battle, minds crushed by the enormity of their pain,

A 100 years on, we understand their plight but yet we have learned nothing.

We are the hapless soldiers confined in our bunkers,

Like the soldiers in the trenches, being trapped for months takes its toll

There are many who would run if they could

They are not cowards but we condemn them for breaking free.

Our simplistic ‘one rule fits all’, belies the mental torture of the few.

Diversity, man’s great strength is now our weakness.

We cannot act as one.

 

We are not at war but our comfortable world has melted.

Nature is showing each of us that it can’t be meddled with.

It is not the enemy and is inviting us to live with it in harmony.

This plague, a message from the gods, that there’s a better way to live.

 

But for now, our natural instinct is to break free,

Our hopes and longings are to be with others,

To hold our love ones and feel the comfort of their warmth.

Some can’t resist this primeval urge and so become the enemy, the spreaders.

Some want to continue a war that can’t be won.

To despoil the earth and over-fill their pockets.

 

Mankind is threatened but not by this virus.

It is our actions that have led us to this cliff edge.

When will we recognise, We are not at war?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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