Judging Nations

As an object lesson in wishful futility
the idealistic fantasy of beating swords
into plowshares and spears into pruning
hooks expresses the fervent conceit of
the peace-minded enlightened that there
be an end to all wars, violence, useless
death and destruction. It is a story whose
vision pleases those of rational thought
and emotional stability who believe that
wishing it to be so will make it so, but
reality intervenes as it will in the real life
face of hateful antagonism jealous of its
belief in the command of a higher order
to extinguish from life all those who fail
to surrender to that which they worship
interpreting such failure as a death wish
they are eager to fulfill. Life is a balancing
act of caution and care to remain alert to
the threats of those prepared to launch
death discriminately as an adjunct to total
conquest. In this theatre of unprovoked
attack by adversaries whom reason will
not move to relent, it becomes exceedingly
clear that those who cling to plowshares
are slated to die by the scimitar of hate.
After exhausting all avenues of rejected
diplomacy the final reckoning is to reverse
the plowshares into weapons of defence
whose power lies in the sublimated and
resurrected will to survive. And they will.