A Poem by Maik Strosahl
On the brightest of days,
There is still darkness at the woodline,
Shadows and their voices
Who stormed out in his younger days,
Killed his father,
Took his brothers to join the fight
For freedom.
They did not want his
Gimp leg and bowed back.
He was left
To toil the fields for his mother, sisters,
Later for his own wife, children until
Nightmares of the forest returned,
New fighters for new causes,
Raging from the trees
To take all he loved off to war.
Somehow,
They never found their way back
To enjoy that hard earned freedom.
Those that would free our souls
Have all come through here:
The People’s Armies,
The Liberation Squads,
The Democratic Militias—
All freedom fighting for
Some force fed ideal.
With nothing left to contribute,
They torched his home,
They burned his crops,
Leaving him in ruins
To build up
Again and again.
The wars have grown silent now,
But those woods,
They still hold their faces,
This forest
Is still alive with their voices
As they rage through the night
In an old man’s nightmares,
Where freedom
Is just a bad dream
Casting shadows and darkness
Upon the brightest of days.
projectagentorange 