At What Cost Does the Morning Come?

Empty and devalued, a meal without substance,
a song lacking not merely chorus but chords,
a victory so hollow that it's difficult to find
where their blood ends - and yours begins.

Are not all victories the same, you ask,
is not this inch of ground worth the thousands
and thousands of lives, regardless of whether or
not .. we have anyone left alive to hold it?

It is, at this point, as with all others,
a question of perspective, vantage, one that while
submerged within cannot be fully understood.
Such is always the nature of these events.

Are not those mere inches, measured with
the span of a soldier's boot, lines to be redrawn?
Are they signs of a progression, symbolic that
regardless of the cost, this war will be won?

Tomorrow, however, beckons and approaches;
ever is it's call clear, the Siren of Dawn much more
audially visible than anything visual, forcing
on man more precognition than he can bare.

But at what cost does the morning come?
Always, with man, that is the secret that can never
be shared until readily known - always is it that
the consequence is cursed to follow the action.

But of the value!, you cry, demanding that
the worth of your just reward eclipse those same lines
that, months prior, you had spent thousands upon
thousands of gallons of blood carving.

Because, let's face it, even though your lines
were previously tighter, the empire encompassed within
much smaller, the relative might and power of your
land slighter - at least you had men to guard it.