Country And Continent

Two minutes

Gathered inside the small box, on a sea of red
They stand.
Oversized feathers in cap
Fur piled precariously.

'Turn the telly up so we can hear the silence.'

Momentarily, he falters, heavily plummaged hat hits the ground: sick, embarrassed.

The small scenes move from the dignified to the gaudy, but sad, always sad.
A young boy still in a war zone holds his breath under the insistent gaze of the world.

'I always observe the silence,' she proclaimed loudly.
Then,
'Oh for goodness sake!' She mutters as her phone sounds, breaking the two minutes. Fingers eager to check the contact fidget over the digits until the wake up tone is permitted.

All desperately hoping without hope
that there was a reason
to send a generation across continents
and spread their blood to feed the greedy soil.