Swords into Ploughshares

Atrocity layers upon atrocity, with mounting venom

Bounded no more by law of any sort,

Courts of reason, moral thought,

Dusty philosophies of what is right and what is wrong,

Each pole a righteous arrow pointing down,

Framing the other as the villain.

God named himself vengeful,

He owned his petty anger,

Impotent in the face of his own

Jealousy. Are we made so much in his image,

Kindled to vicious flame by another mind?

Loving only our reflected selves?

Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.

Nights flash bright with a thousand descending suns,

Ordered to ground by mournful men,

Pall bearers at their mother’s funerals,

Questing crusaders of their storied worlds,

Righteous. Brave. Afraid.

Send forth the men, instead, who softly hold

Two torches. Who, when children cry amidst the rubble,

Unhitch their tether from the post,

Vilify the act but not the actor,

Weather the gusting push of their

Xenophobic tendencies and speak instead to

You, and me, as if we are the same,

Zealous only in their steadfast love.

Authors note: Today I did not feel like making light, and lightness seems sometimes shadowed out. I am afraid, and I am tired, and I know that our children deserve peace, now and always, and that now and always, we burn the world up around them.