Dying to work

Rise and grind, quotas, meetings, long hours,

an industry thriving and dying at the same moment

Those who forge forward, knowing the cliffs edge is approaching,

they still fuel a nation, a people, a world.

They study for years, just hoping for a good life in a country discounted,

they trudge through the sand, mud, and oil, to ensure milk is in the bottles for their children

The wheels of progress continue to move and creak,

but there are those who will not let go of the past and their violent dreams of justice and equality.

Bastardized messages, steel and wood. The guns made by men half a world away,

Now in the hands of a youth, they have become yet again a tool of those misguided.

The mattock rests in the ground, the light shines on,

eventually memories will fade, as they have with an agreement that so many wanted, just to forget.

Mothers of dead children, laying them to rest, heartbroken, not because the order of passing,

but because unlike so many in the capitals, offices, and universities...

They didn't die for what they did, believed, or stood for,

they're gone because they simply were dying to work.

A Decade Later