It takes one

Today

I will begin

to write a narrative

on the city's walls.

In the beginning,

it will say,

in the beginning

was a world we named

Earth.

It is all we remember.

We forget,

and history repeats,

each time creating

a variation

on the theme,

to see if we are

paying attention.

It begins, this time,

with a random

chaos of tanks

playing games in and out

and across a landscape,

seeking the order

they believe exists

in all things,

cohering at last

into straight lines:

Pause,

Aim,

Fire.

But this is not

what I want to tell you.

I want to write,

on our city walls,

one building at a time,

one space at a time,

names,

names of the dead

names of those who died

by violence, abuse,

by abandonment,

and ambition.

I want everyone,

all with still-beating

hearts,

to look up

to find names

of the absent

dropping,

like pennies,

on their eyes.

I want every

one to read,

on our city walls,

the incomplete narrative

of our evolving kind,

and to know

there is always "me"

and to lower our eyes,

to turn away,

is yet another crime

against humanity.