A Memorial

For hills and ideals we died, How many dreams went buried with us No one shall ever know. For mounds of ideals Created by men who sit behind polished wood desks We strangers met in unnamed places Where we slew one another in red waves of senseless fury To satisfy their contentions; to pledge new allegiance to Death's infinite Kingdom. Death is a mighty, though gentle king, reigning as he does in silence and Distance This ruler of the numberless multitude Ever swelling beneath the Earth's soft skin. The great and the small, the strong and the weak, Now sleep together, brothers in the land of long shadows. At rest beneath a mantle of cool starless black We await the coming of the others. We know they will come, dying for hills and ideals Because strong faceless men say they must. Here they will find us secure in our true equality, Our king allowing for no division, dreams or loyalties - No contention, only peace, perfect peace The peace of the brotherhood that drifts in the blankness, The faultless peace of the quiet subjects of death.