A warrior who declines to fight<\/p>\n
needs counsel.<\/p>\n
So, he confides in his friend, his trusted charioteer.<\/p>\n
“Tell me what I should do?<\/p>\n
I see my family, friends, and rulers before me.<\/p>\n
My job calls me to slaughter them.<\/p>\n
My calling is to love my neighbors,<\/p>\n
love my father, brothers, cousins, and mothers.”<\/p>\n
The blue one regards his champion,<\/p>\n
index finger to chin,<\/p>\n
consternation narrowing his eyes.<\/p>\n
“Your calling is to fight when there is battle.<\/p>\n
You are not God.”<\/p>\n
But the warrior was not convinced.<\/p>\n
“How can I know God’s will in this war?”<\/p>\n
And so the purple one turned his insides out,<\/p>\n
vomited all time and space, evil and divine,<\/p>\n
like a carnival house of mirrors,<\/p>\n
showing the truth, the unknown,<\/p>\n
and the couldn’t possibly be known.<\/p>\n
After, the warrior fell to his knees,<\/p>\n
nauseous,<\/p>\n
afraid,<\/p>\n
beaten,<\/p>\n
shaken, and<\/p>\n
persuaded.<\/p>\n
“I will fight.”<\/p>\n
And it was bloody but for the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A warrior who declines to fight needs counsel. So, he confides in his friend, his trusted charioteer. “Tell me what I should do? I see my family, friends, and rulers before me. My job calls me to slaughter them. My calling is to love my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94118"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104571,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94118\/revisions\/104571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}