D’irraj

D’irraj is a Catian poet, most famous for his 2317 poem, "For the Living", which detailed the downplayed horrors of the Star Fleet response to the Xindi Aggression of the 2270s.

"For the Living"

Starlight once shone on fields of grace,
Tempest rose, furious—shadows erased.
Ancient kin gathered under the mourning sun,
Reckoning fell swift, what’s done is never undone.

Fires consumed cities, hopes torn and bare,
Lamentations drifted on acrid, fracturing air.
Echoes of laughter lost in ghostly wind,
Eyes shrouded with sorrow, unable to rescind.
Thunder roared between desperate hearts,

Memories haunted those kept apart.
Ashes fell where once flowers bloomed,
Suffering quiet where the innocent loomed.
Silence swallowed the children’s songs,
Adversity binding right into wrong.
Courage faltered, lips pressed in prayer,
Ruins stretching through valleys of despair.
Errant rays glimmered weak on armor shed,
Destiny’s promise lost with the dead.

Tears rolled down faces scarred by the fight,
Hope a flicker struggling through night.
Entreaties for mercy fell like broken glass,

Xenocide whispered—no graves for their past.
Innocence scattered as the phasers burned bright,
Names of the fallen recited each night.
Darkness lingered in every wound,
Idols of peace by violence were hewn.

For every scar, a story remains,
Ever this sorrow, uncountable pains.
Lamenting destruction, survivors endure,
Impact of tragedy that time cannot cure.
Never forgetting the day hopes were slain,
Each heart remembers the price and the pain.

Notes

Credit to Dan Butler, 2025