My window looks upon a world gone gray,
Where grim trees seem like troubled men in prayer;
Smoke pours from chimneys, telling that the day
Is drear - that piercing winds have chilled the air.
No songbird trills - only the sparrows wait
Hunched in their feathers, for the proffered crumb;
It is as if some stern, relentless fate
Had gripped the earth and left it tired and numb.
Even the far-off whistling of a train
Sounds weary, dwindles to a ghostly wail;
Does all the world reflect war's gloomy strain,
Wondering what foes, what evil may assail?
But spring will come - of this there is no doubt,
With blossoming bough...if mankind would implore
The powers that be to put war's curse to rout,
Could peace not bloom, too, in the world once more?
- Margaret Bruner