A stop sign, and a message. Time is coursing thin.
Blue torn jeans and discovery’s unrest, for me but not for him.
The car stops, the door opens. A resolute sun beams overhead, and my hand goes up like a salute.
To defend against the fiery air.
“Come in, mon cherie, you can take the back.
It will be late when we get there.”
I fell asleep on anticipation, though I tried not to show it.
Hands digging into the seat, sinking into the below.
We came there sooner than I would have thought, too quick for much more worry.
“Here it is, my dear, what you wanted.” The place we came to see.

A minefield, too old for chain link fences, or radioactive warnings
Posted on the gate. Never used since then,
But he remembers, what it was like
Days after the invention of grenades.
“This was where we hit the ground. Where I ran.
Where we couldn’t turn around, because that was
The plan.”
A minefield that’s left its glory daze
The sun no longer in his eyes.
To the youngest it is no event
To the oldest, it was shame, and pride.
I crushed the earth between my palms, and let the dry dirt fall
I only know, my finding it wasn’t sad, I only know
But who am I to tell this to all?

As they grow older, we grow smarter
As we grow smarter, we realize
The pieces that are missing, another worthy artifact,
Lost in the climb
A weary man, helped me up, right back into his van
“The minefield’s been here for years. Yet they won’t touch it again.”
But the older they grew, the less they speak
The less they speak, the less we know
Locked inside, generations to be silenced.
Where is history as a bulwark to our youth’s violence?
I bid the sun “Au revoir” and he drove me back into town
My soles hit it first, then my mind spilled onto the ground
Never forget, never repeat, always listen, and let them speak
We don’t have to make it real
Miles upon miles of
Our own wretched minefield.