memory fails to
stop enduring grief
daily
farewell
face death alone
In 2015, when this post originally appeared, the New York Times published a chart explaining some of the ways civilians have died in the Syrian War. A little research online shows that in modern warfare it is estimated that 85-90% of all casualties are civilians (June 2014 American Journal of Public Health). War also wreaks havoc on the environment, leading to more death.
A Hard Rain
has fallen shadowed
by endless endings, ghosts both
multiplied and lost
Some estimates of civilians killed in recent and ongoing conflicts:
Sudan-Darfur 200,000
Iraq 170,000
Syria 200, 000
Congo 60,000
Afghanistan 45,000
Pakistan 35,000
Mexico 50,000
Libya 30,000
Chechnya 100,000
Eritrea-Ethiopia 70,000
Sierra Leone 70,000
These numbers have only increased since 2015.

There are not enough tears to encompass all this sorrow.
Bjorn at dVerse asked us to write poems of war. I decided to repost some of my headline haiku embroideries–I did a number of them from 2015-2017 when war was in the headlines every day. Now we’ve moved on to other things, but lest we forget, civilians and soldiers are still losing both their lives and homes every single day all over the world

Silence weeps
and eyes refuse sight.
No questions
can be posed,
nor answers given. Light is
erased. Dust and blood.