It's walking to the battleground that always makes me cry

I've met so few folks in my time who weren't afraid to die

But dawn bleeds with the people here and morning skies are red

As young girls load up bicycles with flowers for the dead



An aging woman picks along the craters and the rubble

A piece of cloth, a bit of shoe, a whole lifetime of trouble

A sobbing chant comes from her throat and splits the morning air

The single son she had last night is buried under her



They say that the war is done

Where are you now, my son?



An old man with unsteady gait and beard of ancient white

Bent to the ground with arms outstretched faltering in his plight

I took his hand to steady him, he stood and did not turn

But smiled and wept and bowed and mumbled softly, "Danke shoen"



The children on the roadsides of the villages and towns

Would stand around us laughing as we stood like giant clowns

The mourning bands told whom they'd lost by last night's phantom messenger

And they spoke their only words in English, "Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger"



Now that the war's being won

Where are you now, my son?



The siren gives a running break to those who live in town

Take the children and the blankets to the concrete underground

Sometimes we'd sing and joke and paint bright pictures on the wall

And wonder if we would die well and if we'd loved at all



The helmetless defiant ones sit on the curb and stare

At tracers flashing through the sky and planes bursting in air

But way out in the villages no warning comes before a blast

That means a sleeping child will never make it to the door



The days of our youth were fun

Where are you now, my son?



From