For Those About To Be Invaded

 

I will wait with you:

 

on the roads and alleys in your towns and cities where you gaze at the sky

waiting for the colour to change from blue to tiny black dots that harbour death

in the fields where tranquil pastures and innocent flowers lay untrampled

hoping to be admired by children with their bright kind eyes

but expecting to be ploughed by fire and steel and shockwaves

where the rain that fall will be made from broken metal

and the seeds will be human flesh

and the harvest will be human hearts and the futures of unborn children

I will wait with you in the mosque where you wash your feet

and dry them with trembling hands

in your church where light falls through stained glass windows

and the shadows on the walls project the fear in your eyes

I will wait with you around the fire lit for an absent feast

where the silent company of your comrades have chased the warmth from your hearts

and your bodies helplessly wait to become emptied like vessels with no meaning or refuge

or purpose other than to keep some distant score in a game you don’t know the rules of because it’s written in a foreign language in a rally you do not wish to participate in

I will wait with you in the house of your mother where stealthy objects released by the hands of those who have been taught to effortlessly shift the guilt onto the faceless monster who created them in his image

ruin and crumble that house in a flash, and erase the history of your past and those of your family and friends

 

I will wait for you because you are here, and I am here

because I am your brother, your sister and your keeper

and because the self-appointed leaders are nowhere near,

far beyond our reach in their lofty towers of power

reclining in fine upholstered chairs, perusing one dimensional maps in air-conditioned chambers with their highly paid mathematicians of war who will equate your bodies and the bodies of you children

who will plan your deaths with the amazing technological accuracy of a thin reflective blade sharp enough to disembowel compassion from their hearts

and blunt enough to chafe out the human form from the consequences of their actions and decisions

who will take the dice from your hand and throw it in your absence because you cannot be trusted to live a life of peace of your own making

 

I will not wait with you because you are beautiful, and I am brave

or because you are deserving and I am noble

or because of a higher command or the promise of a glittering prize

but I will wait with you because I am afraid that if I leave you, I will forget what it is to be a human, and become like those who have turned us, the people who pledge their allegiance to the earth and the wind and the sun; into pawns in an evil game of their making

I will wait with you because I have nowhere else to go