The beast did not see the lamb.
It saw only meat.
It did not behold the breath of the child,
nor the mother’s tender weaving of life—
only a table,
only a hunger
that howls in the night.
And lo, the fire came down,
not upon the wicked,
but upon the shelters of the meek.
The walls of mercy were broken,
and the halls of healing
were turned into smoke.
The doctors stretched forth their hands,
but found only ash.
The instruments of iron
cared not for spires nor sanctuaries,
cared not for lullabies
sung in tents of sorrow.
They struck the cradle
and called it victory.
A new Babylon rises—
not by bricks,
but by bones.
Its voice is the serpent’s,
its gold is gained by theft,
its fruit bright as Eden’s,
but hollow, tasteless—
a deception.
They fill their cups
with the sweat of the laborer,
their purses
with the coins of illusion.
Their tongues speak in honey,
but their hands bear the mark
of Cain.
Behind their lyres,
no psalm.
Behind their harps,
no heart.
They sing not to heaven,
but to empire.
Their anthem is mortar and grave.
Their covenant is conquest.
And the children?
Crushed beneath wheels of ambition,
left to weep
in gardens that once knew joy.
Yet the earth shall testify.
The stones will cry out.
The bones will remember.
And silence,
terrible silence,
shall rise like a flood
against those
who called slaughter
a sacrament.
