Cafe Costa @ Tesco

Nine army men around a table,
hunched,  absorbed, intense.
They plan, brief or debrief.
Waitress just removed last
empty large hot chocolate glass,
s if they're boys around a fire,
dreamily living untold winter tales.

These uniformed lads,
so harmless, friendly even.
A yellow sign above the balding leader's
head reads 'Danger 240 volts'!

How can such gentle souls in freedom
step into the realm of war?
Infinite wonder, love and gratitude
that I've so far at least been spared
first hand experience of such violence.

My very life, this life, this incarnation
was afforded by such men as these
liberating foreign lands,
concentration camps,
of untold misery, torture, death
by countless numbered relatives.
Not so very long ago.

So I cannot reject the need
for armies even during peace,
nor condone violence.
And I must live with this ever sad,
ever anxious, ever hopeful sense
that one day, when finally the world
is turned inside out, when violence and
armies concepts of a distant past and
men like these are living lights of peace,
without the uniform.