My mantra as a campaign planner

It's been a year since I got back from Afghanistan. I say this because I started to take our combat fatalities very personally by the time I had returned back to the United States.

Our living plight, the gods cast aside
The gods allay
Our sleepless nights, our restless days
We shall obey their least command
And give our hearts, our minds, our hands unto them

Our voices lift to praise your powers
And seek, seek your help in darkest hours
O gods! We pray with plaintive cries
And trust your merciful replies.

The gods cannot a heart betray
They know not night
They know not death’s long day

They sport in splendor with our fears
And look as dewdrops on our tears

The gods forswear, all mercies past,
Each mortal heart will beat its last

Each mortal hand in stillness lie
All mortal love, condemned to die

The gods have wings, and bright ascend!
To leave us weeping in the end

Laura Kalpakian, libretto to Bear McCreary, "Capricoperatica"

In the interests of disclosure, the other bit of Bear McCreary's work that has weighed heavily on me lately was "The Collapse of Saint Francis." There's an element to penance that sticks in my mind a year after I came back. I hesitate to say that I came home, because a year after the fact, I don't really feel like I'm home.