Disclaimer: Ender's Game and all characters and situations therein belong to the mind of Orson Scott Card. Not mine.
Author's Note: This is a poem from the point of view of Bonzo Madrid's mother after the buggers have been destroyed when, like everyone else in the world, she's watching the recordings of Ender commanding. (Alai did say that Ender now had a career in the vids.) I'm guessing that Graff didn't tell her that Bonzo's death wasn't exactly an accident until after the War - it would have damaged the war effort to have a bereaved mother telling the world that the child they'd picked to command the fleet was a homicidal psychopath - but of course it came out in Graff's very public court martial. By then, Ender had saved the world, or so the human race thought; how must it have felt to find out that the savior of mankind had killed her son? I address that in this poem.
~~~~~~~~
I've watched him on the news vids,
I've watched him in command,
watched him as soldiers fought and died
at every word that passed his lips,
with each wave of his hand.
I've heard the things they say of him,
heard the praise they give,
calling him savior of mankind,
calling him hero of the Earth,
the reason that we live.
But a gravestone in the churchyard
whispers harshly that they've lied:
Bonzo Madrid, thirteen years old,
killed by Ender Wiggin, savior;
killed by his own damn pride.
I've watched his weariness deepen more
with every battle won;
I've watched him, thinking all the time:
There he is, the child who saved the world,
the boy who killed my son.
I've seen his bleeding hand and soul,
watched him fall apart,
and beneath the fire of my rage,
beneath the icy cold of hate,
pity stabs my heart.
But a gravestone in the churchyard
accuses me, cold and still:
Bonzo Madrid, thirteen years old,
who died, like the buggers, fighting that boy,
died to teach him to kill.
I've watched the game eat him up from inside,
and wondered, now it's done,
if another gravestone will soon mark his place:
Ender Wiggin, the boy who saved the world
and killed a mother's son.
As I watched that soldier fight and die,
I wept such bitter tears
for the life the Battle School stole from my son,
the childhood that hellish place stole from them both,
for those thirteen wasted years.
And the gravestone in the churchyard
cries out while I cry:
to teach our savior the ruthlessness
to kill those that would kill us all,
not in vain did my son die.
But that gravestone in the churchyard
whispers still, as my tears run,
that the hollow-eyed child for whom I weep,
the genius child who saved the world,
the soldier-child, a child no more,
was the boy who killed my son.
~~~~~~~~
Author's Note, Encored: I like five-line stanzas like that. They give me more room to get ideas out without worrying about rhyme. Oh, and look! It had two motifs this time! (I like motifs in poetry. See my other Orson Scott Card-based poem, "Ender," and my Lord of the Rings poems: "Child of Sorrow," "The Sea's Bridegroom," and a couple more in Chapter 5 of "The Random Musings of Frodo Baggins.")
Leave a review please - I don't get very many - and do check out my other writings. As well as Ender's Game and Lord of the Rings, I also write Harry Potter and Inuyasha fanfiction, in case any of that interests you.
Author's Note: This is a poem from the point of view of Bonzo Madrid's mother after the buggers have been destroyed when, like everyone else in the world, she's watching the recordings of Ender commanding. (Alai did say that Ender now had a career in the vids.) I'm guessing that Graff didn't tell her that Bonzo's death wasn't exactly an accident until after the War - it would have damaged the war effort to have a bereaved mother telling the world that the child they'd picked to command the fleet was a homicidal psychopath - but of course it came out in Graff's very public court martial. By then, Ender had saved the world, or so the human race thought; how must it have felt to find out that the savior of mankind had killed her son? I address that in this poem.
~~~~~~~~
I've watched him on the news vids,
I've watched him in command,
watched him as soldiers fought and died
at every word that passed his lips,
with each wave of his hand.
I've heard the things they say of him,
heard the praise they give,
calling him savior of mankind,
calling him hero of the Earth,
the reason that we live.
But a gravestone in the churchyard
whispers harshly that they've lied:
Bonzo Madrid, thirteen years old,
killed by Ender Wiggin, savior;
killed by his own damn pride.
I've watched his weariness deepen more
with every battle won;
I've watched him, thinking all the time:
There he is, the child who saved the world,
the boy who killed my son.
I've seen his bleeding hand and soul,
watched him fall apart,
and beneath the fire of my rage,
beneath the icy cold of hate,
pity stabs my heart.
But a gravestone in the churchyard
accuses me, cold and still:
Bonzo Madrid, thirteen years old,
who died, like the buggers, fighting that boy,
died to teach him to kill.
I've watched the game eat him up from inside,
and wondered, now it's done,
if another gravestone will soon mark his place:
Ender Wiggin, the boy who saved the world
and killed a mother's son.
As I watched that soldier fight and die,
I wept such bitter tears
for the life the Battle School stole from my son,
the childhood that hellish place stole from them both,
for those thirteen wasted years.
And the gravestone in the churchyard
cries out while I cry:
to teach our savior the ruthlessness
to kill those that would kill us all,
not in vain did my son die.
But that gravestone in the churchyard
whispers still, as my tears run,
that the hollow-eyed child for whom I weep,
the genius child who saved the world,
the soldier-child, a child no more,
was the boy who killed my son.
~~~~~~~~
Author's Note, Encored: I like five-line stanzas like that. They give me more room to get ideas out without worrying about rhyme. Oh, and look! It had two motifs this time! (I like motifs in poetry. See my other Orson Scott Card-based poem, "Ender," and my Lord of the Rings poems: "Child of Sorrow," "The Sea's Bridegroom," and a couple more in Chapter 5 of "The Random Musings of Frodo Baggins.")
Leave a review please - I don't get very many - and do check out my other writings. As well as Ender's Game and Lord of the Rings, I also write Harry Potter and Inuyasha fanfiction, in case any of that interests you.