Blood and Sand

He lay there, awake, or asleep, or dead.
He did not know from whence the blast came,
but come it did.
“You never hear the one that gets you,”
the veteran had told him.
Only dust, rain and wind could touch him.
His thoughts and dreams dispersing,
As the whop, whop, whop of the MEDEVAC
was too far away to be of any comfort.
A “flying hearse” some called them,
Better an armored nurse would come.
No one saved him, or even tried.
Concerned with saving their own hides, they scrambled and hid,
Fearing another blast.
When on the scene his would-be rescuer came,
The soldiers pain was nearly done,
His soul in ready leap.
Up, up they took him finally, pale and wont,
He soared with the birds of peace,
Yet to land in this desolate place, a place of blood and sand.