Ashes and Armour

Mathew Mytka

Mathew Mytka

Moral Imagineer

I wrote this when reflecting on the challenges faced of overcoming our collective trauma and the test of our spirit in hope and despair

I weep inside often
Outside my shell
Armour hard and weathered
Scuffs and scratches

Lifetimes of rubbing against a harsh and unforgiving world
I need it to protect me from the pain
From loss and sadness
From hopelessness and from brutality
From the cremation of care

Sometimes they trickle, sometimes they flow
Torrents of joy, hope, and grief
What trauma will our children inherit
Genetic, polemic, reified memetics

Privileged tears evaporate in ritual
A wooden owl effigy towering
Misting tears frozen by Moloch’s cold gaze
But tears can hide and remain

Within the armour, a heart still beats
A beacon of light in a shadowed land
Each tear a test to the unyielding spirit
Refusing to be silenced by despair

We often stand at the precipice of justice
Where the echoes of the fallen cry out
For accountability, for truth, for healing
For a reckoning that must come

Global halls of power sway
Politics and law in civic dismay
Multipolar traps ensnare the righteous
Yet we persist, with voices raised high

The weight of history on our shoulders
We bear the scars of those before us
Their dreams of peace, their cries for care
Etched in our collective soul

We must be the architects of a new dawn
Where care is resurrected from its ashes
Where the innocent are shielded by justice
And the guilty face the light of truth

Armour hard and weathered, but hearts soft and beating
We paint a canvas with hope and resolve
For our children to inherit not a world of sorrow
But one of compassion, equity, and love

Through torrents of joy, hope, and grief
We surrender in a river of a brighter tomorrow
Where the currents of care can heal once more
And the legacy we leave is one of shadows in light

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