They call it noble

They call it noble

Not the unearned title

A patrician with inherited status

The blue-blood of the high-born

The aspiration of the righteous

With honorable intent

Magnanimous in their philanthropy

Exalted in generosity

But in its stead,

A prosaic tendency

Creeping blindly forward

Toward the sublime

Elevated above the mundanity

Of ordinary living

Afforded as a gift

To that which lies beyond

The commonplace

Only ever bestowed on common folk

As an explanation

For the most extraordinary

Behaviour

Dying is to be expected

The call to arms a duty,

Courage routine

We are all unknown soldiers

Buried in unmarked graves

Beneath frozen fields

Arm in arm at the coalface

Drowned in steel sarcophagi

The terror writ large

On frightened faces

Wishing to be elsewhere

They call it noble

Those who have looked on

As desperate acts defined

The lives of those who had no choice

When in moments of terror

Survivors and observers

Register the worth of those lost

As a tally of noble-mindedness.

When there is nothing left

But to do or not to do

Bravery is a construct

Of omission

The idealists exalt

Self-sacrifice

The worthy are noble

And the truth of them is lost

Amid the pomp

Of commemoration

The platitude of remembrance.