An Anatomy of Ideals

Justice is blind and flies at night
In the belly of a black bird
With massive wings of sword that slice

Distant sky. Truth’s the breath, unheard,
In a child’s empty-bellied sleep.
She dreams of heaven-fallen food
Like frost, but cream and honey sweet,
Then a bomb tears apart her roof.

Compassion is sweet as a joke:
A food packet that a child finds.
In his grasp the bomblet explodes,
Shredding fingers off his hand.

A man cradles his baby’s head,
Severed by the Sword of Fairness,
Its cut as indiscriminate
As Mercy’s Wingèd-Death. Where is

The Humanity? A father
Asks, points at his bomb-riddled land:
It lies on the ground like Honor,
Half a body, a head, a hand.