"a fire!"

what's to be said

holding high ones red-hand

waiting as the buildings burn

falling

smashing the sorry-heads of the thin beggars

expecting the black-hands of executioners

longing and fuming like free tigers

with revenge upon history's sequestered deeds

"please, no!", might be spoken

or nothing perhaps but "oh!"

how thorough their wretched bodies burn

as we stand  in guardian gear

before the catafalques bearing their whitened bones

their lost and near forgotten charge

their slaves postured on the auction blocks

wanting release from the buried mem'ries in the sea

and the battered souls of their human kin

aching for their home

their fields

making new flesh

for their brothers and sisters to mend

oh, how high the raging flames unfurl