Can there be peace
Without justice?
What good will punishment do
To the deprived and depraved?
What sense does forgiveness make
When there is no feeling of remorse?

Have we failed as a society
To meet our human needs of love, care and fulfilment?
The kind that once came from the warmth
Of heart, home and hearth
Where simple joys and deep dignity were the highest values
And the finest outcome of a collective nurturing.

The loss of dignity is no longer an aberration
It’s become the accepted collateral damage of
Building a life around an economic system
That sees profit and gain
And rights rather than duties as
The highest values, no matter what the cost.

Nothing else matters
No one really matters
Life has been reduced to metrics, indicators and indexes.
In serving the flawed logic of a flawed system
We’ve created a pointless wealth
On the foundations of depravity.

We’ve been complicit in robbing humanity
Of its inheritance…
Of clear blue skies, clean waters…
Meandering pathways in lush greens…
And created instead roads that must get us
Conveniently to factories, offices and shopping malls.

We no longer speak a language
Capable of upholding our finest thoughts.
In fact, we’ve systematically throttled
The refined expression of the softest human sentiments.
We’ve taken away the time
And the spaces to experience contentment.

We scream because we go unheard
We attack, we show aggression
Because there no longer exists
The lexicon to communicate tender thoughts;
To express our need for a simple connection…
To know simply how to reach out and ‘touch’ another.

True justice will be achieved
When society will rise and take the responsibility
For the depravity
That it has seeded, and let grow;
When we will begin to see
The ways in which we stand punished for our crimes.