We attack the beach at Troy in the morning
and I look back, toward home.
I sit and stare west to Achaea across the sea
where only yesterday our thousand ships had cut the deep.
My comrades are jovial, thirsty for blood
and wine, for women and Trojan gold.
But how can we breach or scale those high
walls? They are god-made. The
horse-tamers of Ilium are battle-hardened.
Even with the mighty Achilles and Ajax,
Diomedes, cunning Odysseus, Menelaus and kingly Agamemnon, I fear that our
charges will break upon the walls to leave a feast for carrion crows and dogs.
The last time I saw a sunset like this I
sat with my wife and daughters in the olive grove outside our home. We laughed
as the cicadas fell slowly to sleep and fireflies lit those green and silver
leaves.
The poet said that war breeds heroes, and
that is true. But it also breeds widows and orphans and the death of
bloodlines.
Oh goddess, if you can hear me now…
Watch over my wife and children. May I live
to see them again, to hold them, to laugh and love and watch this same sun set
upon our lands.
I am a warrior. I am strong. My sword and
spear are sharp and my bronze and oak shield thick enough to break a hundred
Trojan charges.
If I am to fight, let it be for the glory
of my gods, of my family and of the land which I long to see again.
I will bleed for you… but I would not yet
cross the fiery threshold of Hades.
Gods of Olympus, let this war’s raging be
swift that we may all return home soon, the beaks of our ships adorned with
wreaths of victory.
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