On Pain and Suffering

Those that we respect the most
Have walked through unspeakable awfulness
And returned alive.

We do not exalt the ones
Who had quiet and peaceful lives
Who never knew pain
Who never lost a loved one before their time.

We long to live in our little cottages
And tend our gardens in times of peace.
To live to old age
And never sit by a hospital bed.

But our books are not about these sorts of people
Who led lives unmarked by suffering.

We long to be the hero,
But we do not wish to climb
Cold and slippery rocks,
Be strafed with bullets
Or huddle with our children in silence
While men with guns search for us.

We rage at God for our tragedies
And rightly so do we shake our fist at the abyss.
While our hearts are consumed,
A fertile future is no comfort to the barren field.

But one day the man on the cold mountain
The woman at her child's grave
Will stand up
And speak to us.