Let it End with us

 Marquette C Costen

 The other day I watched a movie on the trail of tears. I was not
 pleased. They say all is fair in love and war - I for one don't see
 the benefits of war - the winners of coarse enjoy the spoils but are
 left paranoid by the shadowy presence of revenge. So we have learned
 to be diplomatic and this is a resource that I have tapped into
 countless times - the problem with diplomacy is that it leaves open a
 window for the suspicion of physical weakness; and so I think that is
 why in the most diplomatic societies - they bare the highest threat
 from weapons with unknown capacities to deal sufficient amounts of
 destruction. And then they pay the cost for in any war where damage
 has incurred - there must be reparations. I wonder if the souls that
 have left this earth in the 1800's have come back to hasn't those of
 us who share the same bloodline as those who were horrific in those
 times - the ones who raped children and wives of soldiers who were
 abandoned by the heads of the
 household (that shed blood in the war for their families).
  She was an ex-Indian chief, she frowned as she told a story that was
 past down from one generation to another - it was told that an Indian
 family were hiding in the woods - from soldiers - a mother, a father
 and their two children, a 14yr old girl and their son; the soldiers
 found them and dragged the little girl into the woods - while one of
 the soldiers kept the family at bay with his gun the other soldier
 had his way with the little girl - the father - hearing his daughter
 screaming and crying tried to fight the soldier but was knocked in
 the head with the butt of the soldiers rifle: Once one soldier was
 done the other went and had his way with the little girl. [I had once
 bragged about having Cherokee blood in me - and now I wonder how it
 got there, I sincerely hope that I am not a descendant of a child
 what was brought into this world by a victim of rape- and moreover I
 regret if I am a descendant of one who would commit the sickening act
 of rape]. She told another
 story of a woman and her baby who was running from soldiers on horse
 back, the woman ran into autumn ridden river waters to get away
 fearing capture - she hid amongst boulders embedded in a river bend -
 the soldiers past her vy as she shivered in the water. It breaks my
 heart knowing that people were capable of committing Jurassic acts of
 sexual predation/ along with those who would stand by allowing it to
 happen fearing to stand up for what they believe in. And if we are
 the descendant of those who committed these acts of violence - let it
 end with us and let the ones who have been accused benefit from
 turning themselves in, to reap the rewards of honesty and the trials
 of balance, and to those who have been convicted - let the fire that
 resides in the soul burn in them in a degree in which a purification
 can be attained forever. And forever let the innocent be protected by
 the forces of beauty that they may never be stained by the act of
 rape and finally, let the souls
 that seek resolution from the act of violence find peace in this
declaration.