Flying, I crept on high the air

I sought answers that would not be known to other ears
When I crept on high the air.
It’s cold and bitter-biting breath catching in my throat,
And cloudy exhalations a buffeting burn on lips blue-tinged,
I shaped a razor storm, trying to catch a glimmer of truth amidst the grey.

I soared to foreign skies clear in winter’s solid hues
seeking secrets once long buried beneath the rusting ore of
burnt-out battleships,
that yesteryear burst a-shrilly singing into the ozone
scattering a score of the shattered remnants
of the gem our fathers had named Peace.
Peace, a jewel of bright and shining carnation
as the young blood spilt to buy it.

I left the sinking ships,
Brought low by time and gravity
Slowly slipping below the surface of
Another generation free and careless
Of the price of Peace.
Those children of the future who bandy words of life and Liberty
Slouching rosy-cheeked in coffee shops,
While War quietly insinuates itself
Between lines of dialogue and pop-culture reference
To once again be common in so-called
“peace-times”.

I fly to find traces of memories,
Because the torque of Peace forged in war
Is tarnished in its strident song.
No longer does it freely toll a siren’s
Somber melody of grief in times
Of postwar peace.
These hours of dust settling as shock sets in
And we name our dead.
Carving grief so jagged and raw into faces of
Polished black rock,
As if to give eternal tribute to those cut-down forever young.

Still the message of the past burns down upon its present-pyre
Against the desperate banking of smoldering coals of memories
Exhausted of Wars and human atrocities.
So yesterday I crept on high the air
Ever striving to find those vibrant shards of Peace,
Glittering bits of tempered hemoglobin and Iron.
To an ozone of bitter-biting blue
Seeking out answers not known to another’s ears
That glint in roiling, roaring clouds of razor grey,
And in crying to the storm, not a whisper did I find.