Spilling of Life

it ran freely across hills
soaked the ground
dark crimson streams
fresh from battle
sizzled with body heat

it poured
from dying and dead
women, children
young, old,
black, white

stink and waste,
pain, strife,
the pinnacle
of man's inhumanity
to man

She stood in the middle
of it and fell to her knees
smeared it on her
hands and hair
her face and body

She screamed,
"Why, God?"

Her words echoed back to her
for she was all alone
in the graveyard of the last day.

By Kathie Stehr