Hatred breeds where darkness obscures

the beauty attached to cells

which split and divide with remarkable similarity;

every heart bleeds blood.

Every soul’s veins mark its skin in tattoos inked with life.

To decide that one of the Earth’s peoples should be obliterated

is to nominate one flower for destruction.

Would you choose the rose? Or the sweet pea?

Which deserves death?

What reasons could justify the removal

of one shade in the spectrum,

 pure Light knit whole?

Colours, textures, scents, flavours –

the loss of but one is to deny the rainbow its arc,

the garden its splendour.

What great catastrophe will be required to cut away the cataracts

 that blind us to our collective dignity?

*

My heart is heavy as I consider some of the newsfeed I have read this morning. Will we never learn that hatred is ugly? That violence is evil? That each of us has a place in the Global Garden? What legacy will we leave to our children if we cannot learn to love our neighbours?