Refugee (And Soldiers Also Cry)

 Huddled together in fear and hunger,
 Endless miles of broken roads before them,
 Into a life they did not choose.  The children
 Ask their mothers and the mothers cry,
 Because they could never understand 
 Why the children's fathers had to die.
 Ask the tired soldier and he will say
 The answer is just beyond the sunrise,
 And that they must keep walking on somehow,
 Just a little farther.  He smiles helplessly,
 And carries a sleeping child.
 The City will protect you, he says.  The City
 Will protect us all.  He turns and marches soldierly,
 And hopes it would be true.

 And the weary people struggle on,
 Down ravines and over bridges
 freshly bombed and brittle,
 Searching the sanctuary of the City.
 Fighting the unrelenting heat,
 Slapping at the clouds of tormenting insects,
 Never stopping, day or night,
 Lest the approaching war consumes them.
 The dirty faced children clinging to their mother's rags 
 No longer stare at the crushed and broken bodies
 Of those too old or too weak to carry on,
 As the expressionless soldiers dig in their bayonets
 And fling the wretches into the silent fields.
 Death is everywhere,
 And life is worth a crust of bread or a grain of rice,
 If one could find them.

 So with desperate hope the people crawl
 Slowly to the edge of the City.
 It is with a prayer of salvation,
 Or perhaps a promise of a day's rest,
 That they hold themselves with weary faith
 And in silence celebrate the City.  It must be
 A wonderful place, they say, and the soldiers remove
 Their helmets to enjoy a momentary calm.
 Men and women with solemn faces
 Grieve the dead and praise their gods
 As a child pulls out a favorite play thing
 And rolls it on the ground.
 But a soldier must always be prepared,
 And he listens to his radio.
 The anger of a lifetime roars within him,
 Though his eyes betray but a single tear.
 The soldier strokes his face
 And calmly calls to his aide.  The City burns,
 The soldier tells him.  The City burns,
 And soldiers also cry.