The Rite of Bared Arms

The time will come, oh yes!
The time will come when
The weary and care-worn shall pause
And stagnant rivers will be absent their cause.

The time will come when profits of doom,
Their privilege bought with innocent lives,
Will be swept away as infectious scree,
In their wake, the absence of gloom.

Time will come when profit loses its gleam,
Currency will cease to be current,
When we will not comprehend that
Currency once supplanted our humanity.

The time will come, oh yes!
The time will come when the right
To bear arms will be a curious sidebar
In the chronicles of human folly.

The time will come when our arms won’t be weighted
With cold unfeeling metal dispensing lead vengeance
While the arms that bear the arms
Bear no responsibility—we’re waiting…we’re waiting.

The arms of the future will embrace,
The arms of the future will be bared,
The arms of the future will have dared
To forget the arms they bore
And give comfort to those they adore.

The time will come.
The time will come when taking a life
Will be an absurd psychosis,
A vestige of the human psyche,
As useful as the embryonic tail.

—Robert Hieger
December 31, 2021