Eye for an Eye

Innocent blood flowing everywhere
Babies kidnapped, families broken
Retaliation immediate
Eliminate, eradicate.
Wipe them off the earth

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
Back to Iron theology,
when retribution was the rule,
and God turned Lot’s wife to stone

Babies for babies,
children for children
Families for families
Nations for nations

Undiscerning missiles fly
day after day, after day
Thousands of innocent die,
Rubble their grave stones

Justice has been done
but hate still rules
Forgiveness and love
abandoned

A flash of blinding light
Then silence, then darkness
as embers of destruction fade
Only the smell of ashes remains

There will be no history books
to tell the story
There is no ark this time

Robert Bach is an elderly retired surgeon and palliative care physician with history of volunteering in Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast over forty years. Read other articles by Robert.