The City Way Below

While the city was

way below exchanges

transpired in utter

calm and tranquility

after several hours

they had all grown

used to a city of

beauty:  the notion

that the future would

be spent in quiet command

posts and apocalyptic battles.

although an idea comfortable

from birth, was a mirage, an

illusion: most of the men on

the high deck were unmoved:  

yet even their task in life

was gone:  something they had

always expected, even relished:

the logic of the preceding decades

their wars against fantasy and

illusion the life of expectation

in themselves not surprisingly

had led to this:  rising to meet

the challenge of its inevitability:

they had at times actually wanted it.