Victims’ Requite

 Victims’ Requite

When I see old videos: of New York or London or American bombers over Europe in the Second World War; or I hear old swing music or 1950’s orchestral pop music or I look at the canon of warning in literature and philosophy and mythology, I get a strong sense of grief and loss and tragic sabotage. 

I get the feeling that there was something great that we lost; that we humans were great heroes on the verge of discovering our potential; that we might even be echoing the universe’s anguish and resolving it.

Instead we just tapped the keg and floated it in effigy while bemoaning some fictitious battle glory that doesn’t even make sense anymore and hasn’t for longer. 

Now I know all the kids—now adults—don’t see anything in this history and labor. Or worse, the story has been seitseccoed. And they see threat where there was relief and heroism; and they see barbarians as heroes and saviors. 

I hear the strings and my gut is bursting with tears for the victory we sacrificed for a transitory zeithigh and any available victims requite.