A SOLDIER’S LETTER TO HIS MOM

A SOLDIER’S LETTER TO HIS MOM


Mom, do you know how I feel
In this desert, far from you,
Half the world away from home,
Snowfall and the ocean blue?

Mom, as I write this I don’t
Have for you or dad a thought;
Nor for Jane, who all the time,
Cried for me so much distraught.


Mom, my thoughts are so confused.
I truly came here to fight
Those who threatened the US
And its true majestic might.

Mom, just as I picked my bag,
Once again you had kissed me
And told me—“Save the U S
From our evil enemy.”

Mom, not on the soldiers but
On the people I did fire.
In the process, I faced much
Ridicule and hate and ire.

Mom, I am ashamed to say,
Your son is not all that brave.
Firing on women, children,
Was not the thing he did crave.

Mom, I want so to come back,
To quit this sham of a war.
Not civilians, but, soldiers,
I had come to fight this far.

Mom, I have blood on my hands.
Blast those false WMD.
I have killed the innocents.
I pray Jesus pardons me.



* Written in abcb, 7-7-7-7 format

* The author had a rare validation of his thoughts from one of the readers in the following words:

“My own son was in the war written of here, he too had such thoughts, none he shared in letters- but words he shared in privacy with me, on his return home. Tragically, he did not live long enough to share his torments with anyone else but "He", he longed to feel such pardon.”

• Another reader wrote—
“This poem is well written and shows the soldier's pain in such a way that I can't look away from it. It shows the anguish of the young soldier, the pain this man would bring home and carry to the end of his life. Other species eat their young. We don't. We send them to war.
Well written. It was painful to read which means it accomplished what it was supposed to do.”


* The initial item 844522 was deleted on 22 March 2005. At that time, it had been rated 4.5 by 9 viewers. It was replaced by entry no. 336196 in WAR POETRY 950703, which was deleted and replaced by the present item on 15 December 2007.

M C Gupta
1 May 2004