Swords

Swords

This body, Arjuna, is called the field.
     -- Krishna

Swords of conquest rust now,
found in academic digs,
     in grids expanded
across barren fields.

Those conquerors are gone
     --this goes without saying
     --those whose discourse concealed
avarice cloaked in piety.

Spears, too, rot beneath
old marshes, but some are
preserved along with the warriors,
brown now in unoxidized peat.

Know that war and strife
have plagued mankind
through eons, and none have
ventured to cure hate, unloved.