Requiem in the Trenches
Towards an invisible target,
I pour out my fading light.
For a moment, I abandon my body to the trench,
Barely catching my breath.
The brother who smoked a cigarette by my side
Has already departed in a shroud of crimson,
Leaving a premature greeting to the future me.
The gunfire roars.
It is no gentle, distant sound
Echoing from a silver screen.
My ears are on the verge of shattering,
My heart is about to burst.
Even before my finger finds the trigger,
My hands begin to tremble violently.
I aim as if to shoot an unseen deer in the front,
Yet this is no beast.
It is a human being, trembling in the very same terror as I.
Once, we might have been friends,
Tilting our glasses together in some quiet pub.
But at the distant commander’s grand cry,
I shout. The enemy shouts back.
Something approaches me at the speed of light.
I did not know—
That it had already pierced through my heart and flesh,
That it had shattered my eyes, the eternal windows to my soul.
In that fleeting, eternal fraction of a second,
Aeons of time rush past.
The dearest friend of my youth,
The woman I secretly adored,
And the sweet, comforting voice of my mother who always cheered me on.
As though forever marching toward that burning sun,
I once danced toward dreams and hope.
With time and space momentarily fractured,
I collapse.
The dread of death was no longer dread.
I merely took a single step closer
Into the microscopic realm of mortality.
And I look at the comrade beside me.
Now, with my own crimson blood,
I leave my parting greeting to you ahead of time.
My country,
My future,
My dreams.
Within the hollow word 'War,'
My dreams have vanished, my future has withered away.
My country?
My commander?
As my spilled blood gently cradles
The cold dirt of this trench as my final nourishment,
Here, at last, my flower begins to bloom.
While from afar, my commander and my country cry out:
"Our brothers were magnificent and proud!"
"Our nation has claimed its victory!"
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