Stone-man
Stranger,
You were once like me;
A heart pumping blood,
Eyes that could see
And a soul
That could bleed.
Stranger,
Did you feel fear
The day you cried and no-one came
When you were in your crib
And you thought they had forgotten you?
Stranger,
Did you laugh when you played
With your brother
In cardboard boxes
You pretended were cars?
Stranger,
Was your plate always full
Or did you know the pain of hunger?
Stranger,
Did you wear the jumpers
Your grandmother knitted for you
While she told you stories of your father when he was a boy;
Click, click, click?
Or did you shiver with cold in the winter?
Did you wait for the money to come in
With baited breath;
Tick, tick, tick?
Stranger,
Did you go to school?
What did you learn?
Did they teach you to be kind?
Did you study hard
Or did you play hooky with your friends?
Stranger,
Did you feel the love of your mother
And the smile of your father?
Did you have hopes and dreams
And blood, blood pumping through your veins?
Stranger,
What brought you to believe
In a god so cruel
He would ask you to slay children in their mothers' arms
And kill with bombs,
Kill with knives and guns;
Kill with no mercy?
What made you believe in a god so cruel he would ask you to kill?
To watch the light fade from their eyes
As you inflict them with death from your hand?
Stranger,
It seems as though you are only bone.
Not flesh and blood,
Not human at all;
A bone-man.
A stone-man.
And yet you are
Human.
Aren't you?
Stranger,
Do you have a wife?
Or maybe a lover?
What bedtime stories do you tell your children?
Is your mother elderly and frail?
Do you pick her up when she falls?
Or is there no compassion in you at all?
Stranger,
Do you stop to think
Before your hand tightens around the knife under your belt,
Or reaches for the bomb?
Do you pause to wonder?
Does fear grip your heart?
But wait, you are a stone-man now.
Stone-men do not feel.
Or do you?
Stranger,
You were once like me.
Are you, like me?
Is your heart pumping blood,
Do your eyes see?
What do they see?
Stone-man, stranger,
Where is your soul?
You are not a man
If you have not a soul.
© Nicola D. Casey 04.06.2017