Will They Believe

Will the children forgive the generation that’s trampled by horses of war, by exile and preparation for departure? Will they think of us as we were, a bunch of ambushes in ravines we’d shake our jealousy and carve trees into the earth's shirt to sit under, we, the factional fighters who’d shoo the clouds of war out of their vehicles and peer around our eternal siege or catch the dead like sudden fruit fallen on a wasteland? Will the children forgive what we were, some missile shepherds and masters of exile and frenzied celebration, whenever a neighboring war gestured to us we rose to set up in its braids a place good for love and residence? The bombing rarely took a rest the missile launchers rarely returned unharmed we rarely picked flowers for the dead or went on with our lives If only that summer had given us a bit of time's space before our mad departure Will they believe?