Never Reached Home

They are walking! Walking, walking, walking!  Long stretches of walk - hundreds of miles of impossible uncertainty, in blazing sun, in sweltering, muggy, heat - running away from an Inferno.  Home, sweet home! Villages with shady trees!  Destination!  Thirst, hunger, bleeding.  They trudge, fatigued babies hanging on their shoulders like sandbags,  starving infants clutching hands, tears dry on their cheeks. Men and women - walk, walk, walk! Leave cities where cruelty is the only language, Villages with shady trees - Home, sweet home, far away.  Burning sun, sweating bodies, dry throat, growling tummies.  Slog beside railroads - follow tracks, no trains, no buses, no trucks, no vehicles, only two weary feet to carry them to their destination, plodding with all their might until the body can not move a step further. Lie on the tracks - it’s hard, it’s cold, it’s comforting!  Come rest, come sleep, come death -  Blood-stained tracks-  Destination never came.