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How Much Vengeance Is Enough?
How Much Vengeance Is Enough?
By Mark D. Stucky
How much bloody carnage and rubble
is required to atone for sins of a few?
How many eyes must be gouged
to extract desired justice?
If wronged, is exchanging one eye enough?
What about two eyes for one? Or ten for one?
Is twenty enough?
How about a hundred?
Such revenge might feel like justice,
but it fuels hate’s endless cycle.
Can we exit this interlocked sequence
of oppression and reflexive violence?
Can we struggle toward implementing
a radical, restorative, improbable alternative?
Remember what a crucified carpenter taught
about loving enemies and turning cheeks?
Do such ideals seem impossibly wrong
when gushing anger from our wounds?
Yet, as he stretched on splintery beams
no carpenter would willingly build,
he said, while gushing blood for all our sins,
“Forgive them for they know not what they do.”
(See also my related poems “Your Order for Peace on Earth,” “Hate Vacuuming,” and “Weapons of Wonder.”)
(Cropped image is by Amin Moshrefi on Unsplash.com.)
Copyright ©
Mark Stucky
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