Michael looked over the battlefield. A muddy plain littered with corpses. The Somme still glinted red in the morning sun.

So many souls to accompany to their personal parousias.

A figure in black approached. The archangel sighed. War had chosen to embody the Morrigan again. She stopped two paces ahead of him. Her ravens circled high above.

“Appraising your handiwork?” Michael asked.

The Morrigan shrugged. “We all have our part to play, brother. As do they.”

Michael sighed again. “What part do farmers’ and tailors’ sons play in the machinations of Ministers and Kings?”

“These days, the part of cannon fodder,” The Morrigan answered, “Such is the way so many human beings often choose. Especially the powerful.”

She shrugged again. “At least the guns lie silent now…”

Michael monotonously murmered, “on the eleventh hour of the eleventh month…”

Sighing for the last time, he turned from War and gathered the lost souls to their destiny. A wind swept across the battlefield. The stench of so many deaths carried on it.

Yes, the guns lay silent. For now.

But it was only a matter of time…

the price they pay

for our fallen nature

Veterans day

how we turn away

again and again

for Tanka Poets on Site: Gerry Muse #381. Prompt for 11th November 2023.