The UN compiled a dossier
recording each life ever
torn by an act of war.

One brief line for every story:
a lost father; a dying mother;
a rape; a child in fear.

Eventually, two giant volumes
towered into the cold blue sky.
Everyone came to browse.
Everyone cried.

Inevitably, the paper towers toppled,
and, suddenly unbound, white pages
swirled around the raging world,

blinding, blanketing, smoothing,
until everything was as calm
and quiet as a 4 am snowdrift.

Men could no longer shout:
bullets could no longer fly.

©2003, Mike Hession

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Mike Hession lives and works in Manchester, England, and has a poetry Web site at www.mikehession.supanet.com.

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