Thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi for publishing this piece in the August issue of Ariel Chart. 

https://www.arielchart.com/2023/08/a-win.html

A Win

 

 

A sad and weary procession

Of Dukes and Counts

and all manner of Lords,

wearing plumed helmets 

marches past a mist-covered grove

with delicacy and grace.

 

Bearing

amber vases filled with 

dusty embodiments

of those once vibrant and beautiful. 

Masses of long wooden tubes 

carrying those with splendid legacy,

eyes sealed with coins.

 

They are lowered among gentle words

by those devoted to liberty,

by those seeing peace for all as a win,

by those who will forever now 

hear the still song

beyond the polyphonic tunes of war.