Water greedily drinks blood from the dead
while the rest of the world is wrapped in sleep.
I cleanse my sword of the blood it had shed
and pretend I cannot hear my men weep.
The moon wears black like a wife in mourning.
Bodies litter the shore both friend and foe.
Could this bloodbath just have been a warning?
Fear sends me to the ground like a deathblow.
Off in the distance a fire rises high,
breaking through the dark and spreading its light.
Its beauty fills me with hope and I sigh.
Perhaps there's nothing to fear, all is right.
Then I noticed what I hadn't before,
the sky was as red as the blood-stained shore.
Jessie Hopkins
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/soldier-s-warning/
