Poetry Break: "Folk Song"

Sauron Forging the One Ring

(From the 1978 Animated Film Adaptation)

(Fiendishly Borrowed from Wikipedia)

Since I have a lot to do this morning, I'll post for your consideration this poem, which one can interpret in today's context as an expression of self-deception on the part of Sauron and his followers:

Folk Song

We rain down ire,
Celestial fire:
We are a fiery folk.

And when we've done
What we've begun,
Our fiend's gone up in smoke --
Oh, our fiend's gone up in smoke.

Thus rain down, fire,
Form heaven's pyre
Of all earth's fiendish folk.

So when we're done,
All we've begun
Shall be celestial smoke --
Oh, shall be celestial smoke.

It actually stems from around 1994, when I was living in Germany and reacting to the siege of of Sarajevo, among other things, but the poem could readily apply to wars and the common inhuman tendency to imagine one's own side as blameless, even as fighting in God's cause ... which is not to suggest that there's no right or wrong side, or that there's no just war.