---
title: Final Gifts
description: A poem for the end of history
created: 2013-01-24
modified: 2013-01-24
status: finished
confidence: emotional
css-extension: dropcaps-not dark-mode reader-mode toc-not index
...

<div class="poem">
Do not ask the price that we paid \
nor the burdens that we endured; \
but take the world that we have made \
and be happy forevermore.

For you, cold winds no longer blow, \
forgotten are the childrens' screams, \
so there is no more you should know \
---let it all fade, as in a dream.

Nature, red in tooth and claw, \
crushed all in its gaping maw; \
suffering for all the law, \
and pain without end we saw.

War and holocaust, rape and death, \
cancer and decay, lust and greed; \
we fought them to our dying breath \
that such should never again be.

The horrors I could tell you: \
of napalm and gas chambers, \
man's gifts perverted anew \
into hatred and murder---

No. I will not tell mankind's tale. \
How could you live with such darkness? \
To know we built with bloody nails? \
That billions in graves do not rest?

So do not ask the prices paid \
nor what the burdens we endured; \
but rejoice in the world we made. \
Please be happy, forevermore.
</div>