Medic

Bandages in my pocket
On my hands the smell of blood
Eyes close
Ears try to drown
The wails for their saviour
In white, for those with hope
In black, for those without.

Outside,
Children’s eyes
Where the innocence nourishing tears
Have long dried.
The deserts
Now to the spores of hate
Give shelter.

The thought and the wish
To understand why,
Have both grown weary
But that field tires not,
Sending to me steadily
Skin and bones
That once made people.

Nerves tired, often dead
From the pain,
Gifted to the body
Wrapped in sharp metal shards.
To those in the recipients’ shadow
A metal shard toy of their own.
To more mothers deliver,
The shell to which they gave soul.

These thoughts I must abandon
Return,
To heal those wounded,
By the greed,
For diamonds, oil or coal.