I feel it has been some time since I wrote a haiku series, and I was starting to miss the simplicity of it. I was also reading about the Battle of the Wilderness during the American Civil War in early May of 1864. The Union forces threw themselves at Confederate positions to no avail, and survivors recounted the piles of corpses left in the wake of the carnage. Learning more about the experiences and perspectives of the combatants on both sides throughout the conflict provided the motivation for this haiku series. The American Civil War showed the brutality and the cost of a conflict where brother was turned against brother and neighbors became enemies.
A nation at war
Brother fights against brother
Father against son
Wanting ever more
Friends turn on one another
Eager to shed blood
Men of honor fade
Civility dies with them
Only pride remains
Now is time to fight
For our God and country too
Lest we lose it all
Brothers rip and tear
Incapable of reason
Their love has long gone
One blinded by pride
The other led by God's word
Destined to cross blades
Eyes meet no longer
Both sides see themselves as right
Only one may be
Locked in endless grief
Warrior blood flows through both
Neither can back down
The dead fill the land
And questions start to plague us
Where did we go wrong
May God forgive us
For we have strayed far from Him
We shed our own blood
But peace is not ours
Until we have earned its grace
And made ourselves whole
We have earned this war
With our hubris and our pride
And our own sense gone
But we carry on
For such is our lot in life
To set our path straight
In time, all will heal
Old wounds mend to bitter scars
To find Him once more
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The Pensive Warrior 