Not free: the cost of peace,
Hear the rumble in the sky,
Ordnance exploding does not cease,
Tranquillity’s not found as an ally.
Religious warring claims oil and blood,
No reverence found in this place,
Violence advances as a flood,
Crashing sounds across land’s face.
Behind is life as broken rubble,
Once a house was someone’s home,
Smoldering ruins from the trouble,
A child, a parent—now life alone.
Promises made, sometimes a treaty,
Amid the smell of smoldering debris,
Captured on the wall graffiti,
Promises, so thin, from a false decree.
Francis Conlon is a retired and recovering teacher. For the past 20 years, he has worked as a seasonal river ranger and boat inspector at Yampa River State Park in northwest Colorado. He has published in the local Valley Voice and in Westward Quarterly. He currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.