Sea Green

I am an ancient prophecy
Disclosing the year of the war,
Although the war was not the issue,
And I lay a path to eternity—who am I?

The war was unexpected, but thinking back,
Marked the year like a surgery or a death.
The expectation was a kingdom born in the sky above the sea,
The sea being the undulation of restless humankind.
The war evidently sprang from one
Navigating sky and sea—
One we might now call
“Disturbed”
Who engineered treaties as he swirled the sea
Contriving two camps
Which burst into war when he induced
The shot heard round the world.

He aspired, evidently, to mar any goodness enjoyed
In the sky
By the colleagues he spurned
Who in turn had ascribed his sordid, swiveling self
And were preparing the feasts of inauguration—
Seven times on the last tick—
Short-sighted; displaying his ugliness to those of spiritual bent;
Evidently by blunder marking the thing
His crux would heave to hide—
Evidently the fourth and eleventh of Daniel
Unable to override.

The engineer yet lives.

Haling human excellence—the five-fingered hand of Socrates—
Philosophical types invest in the wish that foams from the sea
Raising challenge to philosophical types who look to the rain