From: "The Frederick Family" <efred500@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Submission: The War Within
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 17:42:37 -0700

This is a Sheridan poem that has no real particular timeline. I really
don't keep track of spoilers well so spoiler-fearers, read with caution! It
kind of goes around the end of the Shadow War. I think I'll follow it up if
I get some good comments. So read on, mail away (efred500@ix.netcom.com)
and enjoy!

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The War Within
by Babylon Rider

       The time is fleeting, very fleeting
       As I stand, and stare, and watch
       Our ships are heading off to war again
       Perhaps for good, perhaps for evil, I can no longer tell

       It seems the same, these pre-war bouts of silence
       Same as I have seen them so many, many
times before
       Yet this is a clash of the biggest races, Shadow and Vorlon, with us
playing mice
        There's still a possibility that most of our squadrons won't come
home tonight
        
         It tears me apart as I face the fear with realization
         That I'm sending warriors possibly off to their deaths
          Tearing them away from families, friends, and all they've ever
known, on a whim, in defense of a dream.
           Even though I've been to hell and back so many times as a
warrior
           And then again as a captain
           I cannot help but wonder when it will all end

           Sometimes when I see my friends, my loved ones
            I cannot believe we have survived thus far
            Delenn is always there for me, she understands my ways
             Sometimes I just want to turn and ask her
             "Look into my eyes
             And tell me what it is you see.
             Am I a warrior in defense of a dream?
             Or a killer of warriors?"
             I know, anyhow, that she'd just turn away 
             Because she knows the real me inside
             Because she cares, so do they all
             Yet I cannot help but wonder 
             What I've become

             Last week I saw Lyta in C&C, with Ivanova, speaking about some
plans of theirs
              And as I watched in silence
              I realized how grim and dutiful the shining beacon had
become, how much I'd turned it in to a warrior's shrine
              And I cried

              I wonder if I will survive this war, or the next, or them
all; will I be lucky enough to call myself a survivor at the end?
              What does it matter, I ask myself, if I have no heart, no
soul within?
               As long as I am trapped as a warrior of warriors, I have no
value but to bloodshed.
               If I try to change, I have a chance.
               So it's off to war again,
               For them, a war in which they are pawns
               For I, a war within.