In memory of the dead...

[Zeke]

Around the battlements go by
Soldier men against the sky,
Violent lovers, husbands, sons,
Guarding my peaceful life with guns.

My pleasures, how discreet they are!
A little booze, a little car,
Two little children and a wife
Living a small suburban life.

My little children eat my heart;
At seven o'clock we kiss and part,
At seven o'clock we meet again;
They eat my heart and grow to men.

I watch their tenderness with fear
While on the battlements I hear
The violent, obedient ones
Guarding my family with guns.

- "War On the Periphery" by George Johnston (1951)

(I've always loved this poem, and I used it as last year's Remembrance Day newspost. What I didn't know then was that Johnston was not just a Canadian poet, but a longtime professor at my alma mater, Carleton University. That was before my time, however -- he retired in '79.)