It boils down to statistics

In a distant moment,

somewhere, in a far-off location,

someone orders them to relent:

someone murders another nation.

“We will not lay down and die!”

in anguished hysteria, this they cry.

“We have not struggled so long just to give in!”

They can not imagine that they would not win.

“We have not been injured only to achieve failure!

We will not pretend to condone your behaviour –

we are the masses; the masses are strong.

We won’t be beaten – you know you are wrong!”

In the midst of all the manic confusion,

slowly, someone is crushed – is it illusion?

Amid pointless political debate and bickering,

a lone mother, dusty and mournful, proceeds to sing

a song of loss, of death, of emptiness;

for her young was trampled by the indignant masses.

A question spirits into her very soul:

“Who will be blamed for this?”

She walks away. The greyness clouding her existence is

weighed down by her knowledge of the unimportance of her lost one’s role:

he is now equated

to the

statistical increment

of the ever-rising

death-toll.