When one who passes
From heart failure
Had a heart full
Full to bursting point
With the love of others
A terrible irony haunts
That keeps us awake at night
For those whose hearts are hard as stone
Who commit the worst of murderous deeds
Who celebrate the right to self defence
By collapsing layers upon layer of concrete and rubble
To entrap and suffocate an entire generation
Live good long lives
Barely interrupted
Is it only the just and innocent who die young?
And those who do miraculously survive
Their unrelenting onslaughts
Stumble ghost-like
In shredded rags onto broken streets
Their stomachs shrunken
Their eyes rubbed red raw
Often to become the lonely representative
Of their entire kith and kin
And we ask ourselves again and again
Are the perpetrators of yet another catastrophe
The plump, smug and pompous
Are they moved?
No
For when they themselves pass
Well away from the mayhem
And among their own
They are eulogised
And leave legacies
Drenched in ill-gotten gains
And the blood of others
But she who passes
With a heart full of love
Leaves riches more precious
Than countless exclusive golf estates
Or a procession of powder blue Lamborghinis
Or ownership of infamous private islands
Marked by rapacious child abuse
Or ridiculous titles
And the obsessive greed for ignoble prizes
It is those amongst us
Who give everything of themselves
To those with barely enough to eat
Who leave us with so much more
Though now we know
It can be heart-stopping
Yet they bequeath us an ability to feel
To put ourselves in another’s shoes
Encourage us to link arms
To be brave
To take risks
Work on what needs to be done
Work on what must be done
To care for one another
And they help us to see
To see our world anew
To see it more clearly
In fact, to see it
As clear as crystal
