Crowned in Retaliation

Strung high are the martyrs
Oh, how their crippled feet, they steal the sun
Their cause, noble, it's worthy, so I gift them a death on their cross

I paint them in His tongue's fire -
breathe deeply of their fleeing spirits
They billow from silenced mouths,
the smoke from flesh that coils in service
of the serpent who bore them -
while their lake takes in familiar babes

Their children, they breathe her heavy air,
blue as the face that cloaks them, lost as the water's mercy
They will know only her frigid arms
Delicate stones denied rest, limp, in the heavy breast of her depth

I watched from across a freshly conquered sea as he
placed a crown of retaliation upon the head of your country

There were holes burned against a smoldering curtain - they resembled
cathedrals and homes,
shelter and worship cut from the fire of the sky
(What a marvel What a righteous blaze) -
and into their absence did its people collapse
(...to witness a culture's story
fold into the gravity of its own erasure)