For Memorial Day Stack Arms—Murfin Verse

Back in 2021 after I posted a vintage Memorial Day card as my Facebook cover for the weekend I was struck by brief inspiration.

Stack Arms

 Memorial Day 2021 

Once wars ended with neat stacked arms—

            muskets with gleaming bayonets

            leaning in tidy cones like

            old-time sheaves of wheat

            for weaponless soldiers to pass by

            on their way to other lives.

 

Officers’ swords were surrendered,

            broken over a knee,

            taken as souvenirs

            or gallantly returned

            on condition that they

            never draw blood again.

 

But how, oh how, can we stack—     

            cruise missiles, smart bombs, drones,

            land mines, gasses, biological agents,

            not to mention all of the

            great fleets, bombers, fighters,

            choppers, tanks,

            and those barely acknowledged nukes.

 

Do we fail to stack them aside

            simply because it would be untidy?

 

—Patrick Murfin