When the time comes for warriors to stand down and simply be.

In this way of my heart, so much sadness is there,
and I wonder why, only to see there the answer
written in the ink of my past and present lives.

It is in my nature to wonder why.
Yet, the answer does not console me.
Instead, it leaves me here.

Waiting? Empty? Alone? Where am I?
Like the loyal, last survivor of a cause gone, bereft,
like the lone, the only soldier, warrior,
sitting outside the fortress wall.

Why don't I go home? Why do I wait here, all alone?
Loyal to the last, to death.
I cry, knowing, feeling that isn't so.

No one left, I am alone, yet
I can tell the world their story.
I can free their spirits to the wind,
their lives lived well, in death, honored.

Missed my calling? No, it is but not arrived.
Yet, in this place of wonder,
this painful, heartfelt place, I can
tell their stories, tell them well.

That they had not lived in vain,
that they had not died in vain, their lives remembered.
Me, warrior, soldier, waiting to the last survivor,
waiting, still waiting by the fortress wall.

Why don't I go home?
Because I am here waiting,
wondering what to do.
Me, the desert fighter, soldier in the sand,
warrior to the last survivor, wondering what must I do?

I so identified myself as this, wayward wanderer,
that when I am told I am free, that I am free to be,
I wait here by the fortress wall
that holds me, warms me,
undecided, undetermined, yet wondering,
free to be,
yet not knowing how or
what that means.