Stare into the brutish jaws
Of strife's heartless device
And turn your back to hell.
Resolute in a profound defiance,
No snake coiled your untempered spine.
Stoic-eyed and sage far beyond your years.
Stoic-eyed as youth's zeal was forcibly cleaved from your being.
Stoic-eyed as your homeland bore every strike of lightning
From those thousand scalding storms.
Stoic-eyed as the painted fields of your youth devolved
Into ragged horizons of lush minefields.
Stoic-eyed against the panorama of churning, wanton death.
Resolute in a profound defiance
You stared into the brutish jaws
Of strife's heartless device
And you turned your back to hell.
Alone, you forged your innermost tribulations
Into an unheralded saga of deep bearing.
Ever defiant like a glimmer of quartz in an iron mine,
You child the bombs overlooked."