What Unites Us

Why does it need bloodshed
to bring us together,
separated that we are
like the banks of a river,
the river of blood
that is our own,
fed by streams of blood
flowing down the centuries?
Our blood.

Blood is our bond,
it is our heritage,
we are the blood.
Yet we drift apart like the banks,
and the enemy strikes
and spills more blood.
Our blood.

We fight apart,
but wounded we fall together
in the same battlefield.
We die together,
or if we survive
we lie together
in the same ward.
Maimed, we recover
only to limp back
to our separate paths,
waiting for another tragedy
to unite us again.