Demobilized

I am a demobilized armada
A vast array of war machines
Languishing in dock and depot
Missiles and tanks, medicines and masks
Beautiful when turned to ugly purpose
Pathetic when relegated to rust or recall

How noble the soldier appears
Carrying his sword into terror and torment
Kill or be killed somehow a moral maxim
Each uttered word filled with urgent portent
The reality of ready mortality
Giving purpose to the life-driven life

The decommissioned warrior like an astronaut
Returning to an Earth impossibly unchanged
Not merely life goes on but death and disappointment
For all the talk of insight and transcendence
The war was waged not for a new road
But for the road on which we travel still