Easy - Sampurna Chattarji

Death is easy to pronounce.
He deserved to die.
They ought to be shot.
Hanging’s too good for him.
The words fall glib.
Throwaway lines
sentencing them to death.

Distant observer,
you speak without guilt, or fear
of misplaced allegiances.
You just need something to say,
that’s all.

The right sentiment, rightly declared
whichever way your loyalties blow
in the gust of the smokefilled air.
A country burns.

The death-dealers deserved to die, you say.
Death is easy to pronounce.
It’s the smell of burning children that’s hard.

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Sampurna Chattarji (born 1950) India (born in Ethiopia)