Final Gifts

Do not ask the price that we paid
nor the burdens that we endured;
but take the world that we have made
and be happy forevermore.

For you, cold winds no longer blow,
forgotten are the childrens' screams,
so there is no more you should know
- let it all fade, as in a dream.

Nature, red in tooth and claw,
crushed all in its gaping maw;
suffering for all the law,
and pain without end we saw.

War and holocaust, rape and death,
cancer and decay, lust and greed;
we fought them to our dying breath
that such should never again be.

The horrors I could tell you:
of napalm and gas chambers,
man's gifts perverted anew
into hatred and murder -

No. I will not tell mankind's tale.
How could you live with such darkness?
To know we built with bloody nails?
That billions in graves do not rest?

So do not ask the prices paid
nor what the burdens we endured;
but rejoice in the world we made.
Please be happy, forevermore.