"The Mortar" (1992)

When I was in middle school, we read a poem called "I am the grass", by Carl Sandburg, I vaguely remember it being taught as some sort of an anti-war piece, but I was more interested in the poem than the lesson around it. (I also had, and have, little respect for the interpretations we were being fed for a lot of stuff in those classes, but that's another story)

The following hour in science class, I pulled out a notebook and began playing with some words that were rhyming in my head. Half an hour later I had a good sketch of the emotion I was trying to capture.

By math class, I had something. I didn't know exactly what, but when I read it to my classmates, a lot of them were slack-jawed, and even those that weren't art enthusiasts were giving me reverently approving nods.

So, I figured I would pull up that old piece and see what kind of response it got today.

"The Mortar"

By

Cisco Cividanes

1992 (age 13)

*

I stand alone, so far from home, and then a scream.

No Irish Banshee, or Russia wolf,

are as terrifying as the scream

that follows that fateful "woof".

The scream is from a falling mortar,

that seeks out men who sit and loiter,

in and near the lighted places,

where smoke and ash contain the faces,

of friend and foe,

who's death is all the ground will show.

Human parts not meant to be seen

sit and float in pure blood streams,

victims of the lethal tools,

furnished by the ones who rule.