Friends, cowards, gentlemen
I have come before you bearing a truth
So heavy no one can lift.
Among all my days
I have seen laughter
And greed and pain
And love and ‘longing;
Seen hearts and minds
And guts and skulls
— those tools of humans,
Those stones of flint
We nap at, ever chipping away
Ever changing, ever forming
Ever losing some,
Sowing splinters for others to find
My friends, my siblings, my guests,
This is a truth:
No man or woman is a star
If the sky is rendered in darkness.