A Reasonable Death

I did not know him
A stranger to me
Yet a brother.
Now he lies
An empty vessel
Poured out
Upon the cave floor
Of Abdullam.

The scent of gunfire
And blood
Come to me
Stinging the air
More with sorrow
Than acrid powder.

We are beyond
Searching reason.
We know the reason.
The question rather
Is how we go gently
Into the silence
Of the earth
Happy to die
For so powerful
A compulsion.

Tomorrow
Or the day after that
The muzzle may point toward me.
I hope to
Smile at eternity
In a way
That brings skeptics
To puzzle
Over such
A reasonable death.