eyes that could be would be opened

The shelling was compelling, for though it destroyed many a home and many a life, it was something London (among others) learned to live with during the Allies war against Germany and the Axis. These times are long gone now. And yet someone somewhere being shelled shouts 'look at me! look at me!' (Palestine? Ukraine? Syria? Honduras? Yemen?). Shelling is a poor repeat performance of the human race. Let's disturb and destroy the perceived enemy's civilian population, by tossing from a cowardly distance and protected by armour (tank, missile, barracks), an explosive device into your family's sacred space. Peace swept off the table like porridge by the careless arm of a drunkard. Then the machines begin to pack up with ammunition and roll. The mechanism is diabolical for it cannot be stopped by a simple soldier with god and country behind him. Morality was annihilated in boot camp. The heart again subservient to the great mind. A human failing, repeated.

The shelling was compelling. How dare you say that? You must have grown up in an era of peace and flat-footedness. You must never have served your country!

True. And I say again, bearing witness to history and human nature; the shelling was compelling. For it woke up the civilians. The ones who lost their homes. The ones who knew the ones who lost their lives. The revolution began with loss. Set up an indispensable activism by proxy. Eyes that could be would be opened. The shelling was compelling. For all the pain and hurt and loss it caused. It caused a reaction that would change the world. It caused families who once had no interest in one another, other than typical mundane interaction, to become intimately involved with one another, and thus an extended family was realized. The potential was limitless. Just like any location any ghetto any land of lack or violence. The families become greater families become movements become love and compassion in motion.

The shelling was compelling. For by it, the best of human nature was yanked forefront into the world. The photographers flocked to the location and fired away. The photos would go down forever flat on coffee tables worldwide. The children would pan through the images and find out what their little hearts really can do. Seeing the decimated lands and homes. The sacred places where people came together to survive. Victims of attempted holocaust or genocide or declared war in the name of anything money could buy. Innocents. Angels. Hands reaching to embrace total strangers. Marches in the name of the sacred. Principles and spaces. Interlaces. What a dream. The shelling was compelling, only by the effect it produced which rippled around the world. Eyes that could be, would be opened.