Already Over

When the next delegation arrived, hope was already dead.

Candles were lit and the Sun was dimmed. Lanterns hung and stars hid. Trees demolished and camps built.

“We have come to your rescue!”, they called out to the village.
“Hooray”, the deceased rejoiced in unison.

They marched through its metal gates, climbed atop its high walls, and brought with them bark and grain.
Food for their stay, wood for the coffins.

“It is that way”, a village boy dismayed. And on they marched with belts and rope, atop a hill made of fiery gold.
On his throne of blood and bone, rested none other than death, drinking from its urn.
It laughed aloud at the new recruit. A sound of rusting metal and burning wood.

“Be careful”, the wife cried.
“Don’t go” , the children refused.
“I will make history”, one hopeful mused.
All of them dead, bodies plagued and rotten. The village buried their guts with all the others fallen.

“One day we’ll live”, a villager sang in tune, to the lullaby in her dead children’s room.
When the next delegation came the gates were left open.
“Flee, dear soldiers, the war is already over.”