22 years old, dead in a bag.
‘Just down there’ casual words from a ‘reception’ desk.
Cold.
But, then, a mortuary is a chilling place.
‘Chill out’, we say.
Then rows of babies follow where my son has gone.
He departed by train at night.
Limp hands, recognisable like my own.
Cold, lifeless.
An accident.
None to blame.
But these babies, gone before time?
No excuse.
Death by choice, of the vulnerable and truly innocent.
Few are truly innocent.
Time compounds circumstance and reason
to churn us into who we are.
Some curdle, I suppose.
But death at birth has no rhyme or reason.
Don’t multiply your guilt by pointing fingers.
Don’t seek to assuage hell
by washing your hands of your complicity.
Wringing your hands won’t dry the blood of your hypocrisy.
But remember also, neither will it erase the all encompassing love
of the God you claim to worship,
yet who through obscene action you blaspheme at every turn.
Copyright Andrew Pratt 19/11/2023
hymnsandbooks 