They stand shoulder to shoulder,ntheir jaws tightened with grief.nI stand as a translator.nI lean in and repeat,nnThis is a lesson in history,nThe victors knew victory and the vanquished knew war.nBut though their voice would come later,nit's power was greater. They survived and endured.nnI'm coated with sorrownlike fresh ice on a lake.nThough periodically shattered,novernight it's replaced,nnbecause there are wall scale projectionsnof the most meaningless questions by the museum's store.nAnd somewhere ashes still cracklenand casualities stack until we can't see them anymore.nnThe sputtering engines, the boundaries of will.nThe leaking containers you're reluctant to fill.nDefining illusions, exhausted and old.nYour shrinking perspective as it gets cold.nnThings I've deemed immutable,nthey were all vulnerable to change,nwhile my most transient habitsnare almost all that remain.nnLife can float on the surfacenof things predetermined and wilt like brightening leaves.nWhile you're enslaved by possessions,nreflexive aggressions and ornimental misery.nnSo let's take all this darkness,nconvert it to art, and scrape the rust from our souls.nCrowd in to every omission with more extensive ambitionnthan just damage control.nnDamage control.