FULL MOON ON TOP OF A CHAMPAGNE PALM'S TIP

if you say that the war is over
it is not actually over:

one has to count the dead
look for trucks, and kind hands, contact the priests and imams,
and bury them

one does not have to say prayers only for the dead
but also prayers for the living

one needs more time to open once again those fists and locked jaws
one has to compose the words to heal

more years to go for more promises

a thought perhaps that war is cruel
and that those men who inflict these wars
on fellow men, brothers, and
comrades and fellows of the faith
are always more cruel than those mortars and
tanks all combined

one can for the meantime only give
a little pause for silence.