The earth beneath a man’s boots is
a thin crust suspended over a void,
and whoever walks it believing otherwise
has already surrendered to illusion.
Speak and act as the person you are, stripped of disguise and excuses.
Every false gesture adds to confusion;
every honest one keeps open the passage
through which the world may yet escape itself.
Refuse the intoxication of force.
Its victories are counted only
in what they have turned to ash.
Become instead a witness,
steadfast in fidelity to the possibility
that people need not forever answer
fear with blood.
Some will call this weakness.
They’ve forgotten the true cost of strength. Yet peace must outlast war
as day outlasts night:
by enduring,
by keeping people alive
rather than burying them.
For every battle,
whatever flag flies above the slaughter,
takes its toll from the brave,
from the irreplaceable,
and leaves behind a silence
no triumph can ever fill.