Snow the morning of Veterans Day

and birds perched on the empty feeder

looking at me dolefully, their red breasts

reminding me of those whose lives have

been lost at war this day, Veterans Day,

those in trenches, morphine coursing

through their veins to stand the terrible

pain, the cold, the loneliness, the bullets,

OK, I said,as I put on my slippers,

scrounged for bird seed in the basement

and shuffled through the snow, so little

to ask in response to such sacrifices.

I highly recommend reading Three Day Road about two young Canadian (Indian) men who go to war. The reference to morphine comes from this book.  This book woke me up to the horror of war.