CLOUD OF WITNESSES

Must all emancipators die, and die violently?

Why is it that men who live and love for peace must die in war?

Wars and rumors of war claim the lives of the innocent perpetually,

But why is that those who succeed in abating the course are consumed in the final smolders?

Could it be perhaps that to extinguish a flame, water being in very nature opposite,

Must enter the home of the enemy it seeks to vanquish?

That when it subjugates the flame and robs it of its heat,

It absorbs the pain of the flame and thus ceases to be?

Converted from its former state into a higher one,

Where once it was solid and cold to liquid and warm,

Transformed to a spirit, a vapor, which now flies above,

The specter of violence that lingers on,

Within the pit of the extinguished flame?

The emancipator lives! But in a higher plane,

Joined with a host elevated high above the plains,

Floating great in the heavens as part of a cloud of witnesses,

Witnessing a world continually embroiled in flame,

Until the heavens strain, and the skies open,

And all flame is extinguished by the return of rain,

And even the greatest conflagration will be conquered then,

Beneath the gentle patter of the revenant rain.