There is madness loose

In this world today.

A lack of tolerance

No understanding

No community.

Some have passions

They think all should share.

To compel conformity

They use violence;

Berserk terrorism.

Yet already, we conform.

Our genes are the same.

We each are born of woman,

We all return to dust,

Conflicts evaporated.

The only difference

Is in our thinking.

Their thoughts become tangible.

Brutalised and lawless,

Initiating chaos.

Both sides are mad

In different ways.

Mad with Fanaticism.

Mad with grief.

Mad with rage.

No safe haven or asylum

For combatant or victim.

But now the madness

Like war, has escalated.

To include our children.

Nearly two hundred died

Held to ransom

In their own school

On a summer’s day

In Beslan.

A child is innocent.

To see such children

Bloody and broken,

Revolts the hardest heart.

And is incomprehensible and vile.

Our grief is huge.

Killing children is not human

And insults a beast.

These are the depths

That madness takes us.
 

Dawn McDonald
© September 2004

Midi: "Reverie"
Composer: Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky

Graphic
(Courtesy of BBC and Reuters)