Let me tell you the story of remembrance

Victory tastes like oak

Defeat tastes like ash 

The guards find remnants of Joan of Arc on the dusty floor 

She breathes in the musty air of her cell 

The smell of smoke fills her lungs

Inhale 

Exhale

Nothing.  

 

A french soldier boy keeps a magazine cut-out of Joan in his breast pocket, 

like one might with a lover

Mud caked hands

Blood soaked tongue

It is all he has ever known

A light breaks the fog

German 

The boy fears

The boy knows.

 

Your dreams are of war

Girls like you belong in the dirt

The earth and bones claiming you 

Salvation is never peaceful

You walk the ground, 

half awake

Looking to the hollowed faces of man

Your dreams are of war

You are of another time. 

 

Somewhere, another child tumbles

The phoenix settles in the boughs of a fig tree 

The soldier boy falls

Knees sinking into dirt

He laughs as he descends

Burning brighter than wax wings

He knows the truth

Thinking to himself,

Death is the one thing false kings cannot claim.

 

Joan screams,

a lone sound filling an empty hall

She knows she was right 

Like Delphi

Like Cassandra

She is not at peace

For she was born for war

But still she searches

for peace

for war

for nothingness

She looks to the soldier boy

Brushes the dirt from his face

Cleans his blood-stained shirt

And whispers,

Il y aura la victoire.