The generals

 The generals say 200,000 soldiers 

died, as many have been wounded.

He does not say how he counted 

100,000 twice 

or how sure he is the dead 

and partial dead 

are evenly divided between 

Russia & Ukraine.   

He says Autumn has turned 

the solid ground to mud so tanks 

with sons and lovers all will sink & 

that makes further slaughter 

tough.  

This seems the time to call a truce 

but the generals want their sides

to hunker down 

and wait for earth to freeze 

and then begin to kill again, 

with much more ease.  

He never lets out a wish, a sigh

for peace, the peace of doves drifting 

to the ground. 

If it were me, I‘d  ask for that—

a quiet season for those still living 

men and boys.

I would send them home to autumn 

on their lawns of gold.  

I wonder if the fighters love their lives

as much as I love mine—I would never choose 

death in any season, 

most especially not in the Zen 

of Autumn skies.    

The already dead —all 200,000 

known, loved, now wept for —

have made the low beds 

they now must sleep in.  

No recanting, too late to demand a truce—

tho if there were a God, they could.  

The sunken tanks as useless as their bones

and TV viewers who cheer the generals on

will never have to see teeth gleaming in the mud 

under an autumn sky made hellish 

red with death,