My poem

I retired with 20 years as a very proud member of the Army Nurse Corps, during which time I spent one tour in Iraq.

Colors

Images of little girls.

Rosy cheeks and scarlet lips.

With azure bows in golden curls,

And daises clasped in chubby fists.

Little angles laugh and run.

Emerald grass and sapphire skies.

Candy clouds float past the sun,

Reflected in their hazel eyes.

I always dream in color.

But then the only color’s tan.

Miles and miles of sand and grit.

Dirty brown and dusty sand.

Glaring sun, and sand, and grit.

Doors fly open, voices call.

I touch the patient, feel his pain.

Crimson liquid droplets fall

around my boots like scarlet rain.

Precious rubies, priceless garnets,

glisten, sparkle, shimmer, glow.

Precious fluid, hope incarnate,

from this dear sweet Angle flow.

Healing warriors, skilled but hurried.

Lines and needles, bags of blood;

eyes determined, faces worried;

working fast to staunch the flood.

Lips that turn form ruddy tan

to cruel shades of pastel blue.

Strange to see it on a man,

it’s really such an ugly hue.

Blue that shifts to ashy grey.

Ashy grey to pasty white.

A tear strained voice begins to pray.

Our Fallen Angle’s lost the fight.

Silhouettes of little girls.

Black on varied shades of grey.

No flowers, bows, no golden curls.

Just tear stained cheeks, death and decay.

Shape and shadow, shifting form.

Hands that reach toward my heart.

Sons and daughters left unborn.

Lives that end before they start.

I never dream in color.

Susan Grimm, 2014