C O M B A T
	the Literary Expression of Battlefield Touchstones ™
	ISSN 1542-1546 Volume 02 Number 02 Spring ©Apr 2004

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Little Rag Doll

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I walked from life
Straight into hell
Her eyes, stared
Like those of a skull
Horrifically back at me

The terror of destruction
The years of pain to follow
The suffering, unbearable
The cause, futile.

Bodies lay, scattered,
On what was once a market
Buildings, shattered
In a split second's gunfire
It was there that I saw her

An orphan, walking, almost stumbling
Slowly toward me,
Long curly black hair
Eyes misted with dirt and pain
Dragging behind her,
A little rag doll

My heart wept,
Whilst my soul fell to pieces
Such sanity
In the face of inhumanity

She stared, but said nothing
Her world, fallen about her
My world, standing by
Doing nothing

I wondered and wanted to hope
But there was so little left
Taking her hand
We walked slowly through hell

Fires burned fiercely
Smoke, and the stench of the dying
Hung high in the air

The horror of the night
Had united the morning
In a shocking embrace of death

Yet we walked through it all,
Both hoping
With what little we had left
For the end.

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by Jonathan H. Evans
... who is a property consultant and British veteran of the Bosnian conflict, which experience inspired this poem.

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