Shattered Poem by Ronald Strickland

My thoughts are shattered by the
sounds around me.

My dreams of home, the mountain out
my bedroom window as i wake each day.
I could not wait to wander into
its open arm, adventuring.
My siblings yelling for me to keep up.

Other brothers, my friends,
screaming shatters my thoughts of home.

Silence is broken once more as the
earth rumbles and again I'm shattered
by the sounds that brings death.

Sounds that shatter families who did not
want their child in danger that took
them away from home.

Lives lost by so many for a cause
that so many no longer care for.

Surely their sacrifice was not in vain.
Those who fought cry out in pain,
not for themselves, but their country.

Our country will not survive so
long as we are divided.

Not on the battlefield but by those who
control our government,
those who shatter our country,
and smothers it in shame