The One Who Is Afraid

What power you have to break and wound

To bind and mute

To kill and maim

What power you have to split the earth

Where songbirds sing and children play

What power you have to end



You hold no strength from kindness

No courage from compassion

No force over hope

No power over love



You are frail

Weak

Feeble

You seek to quell your greatest fear:

That you will be unremembered

Forgotton

That you will be no more



I will not say your name

I will not note your life

I will not give you what you want

I will know you only as the one who is afraid

In time when you are no more

As is true for every living thing

Love and peace will reign

. . .


Aggression is the antitheses of love and invariably born of insecurity.

War is the most extreme and cruel form of destruction humans have devised.

All those who begin war are driven by their fear of mortality and their need to leave their mark on the world. This poem omits their name, and removes their prize.