Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear

But more often the absence of choice

All the great acts of bravery done

Not by the brave—who is brave?

If there’d been a chance to run, to hide

They’d have done it and been forgotten

No choice was given to these fate-chosen heroes

So the fear was faced

The feat complete

Their seal upon humanity

The choice was not to live or to die

(How easy would be so to opt)

Rather the choice was to die or to die

Die well or die ill (with remorse)

Then in one blurry moment of suicidal craze

Against the strangling odds

They struck out and offered their body as forfeit

To death, the first, the quicker

Then found him like fate

Strangely, strangely like fate

Erratically benevolent

To give it all back in one chilling blow

Their lives and their loves and their fame

Die with face full into the wind?

As proud as an old mountaineer?

Or die in shame’s flight?

Last moments frozen forever?

In a terrified, petrified fossil?

The stone of the past doth keep all things well

What tales! What tales it will tell!