Grinding War Paint
Grinding War Paint
Now that there will be no peace.
Now that you have a bitter enemy, whom
neither olive nor a drink will soothe.
Now that your innocent glow
is spattered with recrimination,
seek again those empty spaces
where rock and dry wind
sing more than your birth.
Learn from the dust that blows with each breeze
and from the rock, that moves also, but more slowly.
The desert freezes each night and dries with each sun:
You are like all others—less than master—yet freer than bird,
more pure than the blood on your hands
and can love again.
Leave a prayer at a spring that the gods
(who have never been known for truth)
truth will yet reveal.
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