Hegel, shmegel

Perhaps war is the ultimate human act:
the savagery we are capable of
harnessed, uniformed, codified
so that murder and torture somehow
fit within our cherished law.
As if there were laws about war when
everyone knows all is fair.
Else how could we have
perfected the MASH unit and now return
the wounded with great expediency
to the mouth of hell
but we haven’t figured out yet how not to fight at all.

A mom sits at home with her baby’s book
and knows that war was never in his nature,
can still feel his fingers wrapped around hers,
his baby tears at the doctor’s office, his boy-tears
in the alley, broken bike, torn jeans.
No amount of hormonal surge could turn that
child into a killer.

So it’s a marvel of nature, a metamorphosis
That puts the butterfly to shame.
Even if we shut down the war machine
and bring them home tomorrow
their reign of terror will go on
inside and outside their dreams.