Picture
if you will a photo
A
photo of a town
A
damaged, war torn town
Unrecognisable
from any other
This
town could be any one of thousands
And
probably is
Picture
in the centre, filling much of the frame
A
building, a house
Broken,
falling down
Its
original design lost in the aftermath
Of
a bomb, or bombs
Dropped
by an enemy
The
inhabitants had never met
Now
picture in the foreground
Poking
from out the rubble
A
small hand, a forearm
Broken
The
colour of the skin indeterminate
Obscured
by blood and dust staining its surface
The
face of the child unrecognisable
Beneath
the debris
This
child could be any child
Of
any age
Of
any gender
Of
any race
But
one child among millions
Picture
all this, if you will
And
then call this picture ‘price tag’
For
this we are told is the price of freedom
This
the price of peace
The
death of children
Ours,
theirs
Yours
But
what price the life of this child
What
price this child
And
who decides this price of peace
A
country whose own children fight
In
an army that will kill more of them itself
Through
miscalculation
Equipment
failure
And
human error
Than
the enemy will ever see
And
their names, too, will become numbers
Tabulation
of acceptable loss
But
one more price
In
the fight for that we cannot win
Through
war
But
what price the life of this child
And
do they think us so unwilling to pay it
That
we would not forgo a meal to see once more his smile
That
we would not risk the insecurity
Of
reducing a military
That
cannot protect us
To
see her play again
Of
limiting a deterrent that does not deter
To
hear them all laugh again
But
murder is nothing new
War
is nothing new
It
is a part of us
And
has been for as long as our races can remember
And
longer
Since
man first learned that by bending his knuckles
Curling
the tips of his fingers into his palm
He
could turn the end of his arm into a club
And
no country is without its evils
Its
injustice
Its
closet full of skeletons
For
all colonisation is genocide
All
succession, each claim to territorial rights
Is
bloodshed
And
all conflict gives death to those
Who
did not chose the fight
But
all I can ask is
What
price the life of this child
This
life
This
potentiality unrealised
Never
to run again
Play
again
Never
to grow
And
laugh
And
know love
This
life extinguished
For
reasons not adequately explained
Justified
Or
any fault of this young corpse
Lying
among the rubble
Its
home has now become
