Burning
Have you ever witnessed a tree burn? Its similar to what a man must look like when set on fire... ...the screams are visible, the lapping flames audible If you could briefly touch through the smoke that stings, tree and man flay their arms in desperate attempts to live... But whats most pitiable about the burning is neither tree nor man... ...its the pitiable passersby with their averted eyes... having committed the unredeemable act of witnessing an atrocity ...witnessing one's own culpability in a brazen homicide. What's left of tree and man after they've been burnt? Ash perhaps A few smoldering cinders Coal perchance The kinds thats kindled in fireplaces on chilly winter nights, when grandparents tell stories of brutalities at war and people being skewed alive.