Raspberry Tea And Empathy Poem by Charles Hancock

She sipped her cup of hot raspberry tea
Jumbled thoughts bounced in her head
Staring at a ceramic bowl of potpourri
Would this be another day to dread?

Why did her husband have to die?
First Iraq, then two tours in Afghanistan
She is no longer able to cry
This wasn't in their life plan

She knows she still has it good
He always thought of her first
Enlisted to provide a livelihood
Lived and loved it; went fully immersed

Each day morphed into the next
Now a year has came and gone
She still clings to his personal effects
Her grandfather died near Saigon

Her grandma always seemed lost
Having no body to bury was the worst
The wall has his name embossed
He'd be seventy on the twenty-first

It's nearly 12: 30 and there is the phone
Chaplin wants her to accompany him
Talk with a new widow so she won't feel alone
She always goes when the news is grim

The military price her family has paid is high
Her grandfather and husband would be pleased
Genuine empathy for others is in short supply
War is the most terrible thing man ever conceived