Be wary of people who think in black and white.
War begins with, and feeds on,
Issues framed in black and white.
Black smoke pouring from a helicopter's wreckage.
Old men crouching over rows of white-shrouded bodies,
Weeping glass tears through stained black fingers.
'Taps' echoes down a summer hillside in the midwest
Between rows of white crosses, flags tumbling in the wind.
Boys running, always running,
From the white crack of gunfire--
Their faces smooth and blank.
In the photos you can smell the heat, smell the blood
Spattered, pooled, running in rivers.
Dreams and lives ebb away
As the conflict grows more bitter, futile, divisive.
Black robed Muslim clerics, drinking tea from silver cups
Promise a glorious death and virgins to lure boys in mosques.
Recruiters in dress uniform, range across America,
Offering signing bonuses to kids gathered in malls.
Their wages to be redeemed--
In the richest, hottest, and reddest of blood,
In war's otherwise black and white world,
We break the bodies and souls of our children,
Pour the blood of our children
Over altars devoted to issues of black and white.
Blood is the shared color of this war,
The primary color.

c.2006

Mary Bradley