ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

WHAT IS AT STAKE?

Two men are taken to die at the stake
But what is at stake?
What justification for these lives that they take
Yes they knew risks, and those risks were taken
Yes they were caught, and yes they were taken
To a faraway prison for a very long time
Paying in years for a greed driven crime
Yes they were stupid, their youth was misshapen
By factors that we will not know, nor understand
But an eye for an eye, man killing man
Achieves nothing for nobody in the brutal end
Except two more corpses to lay in the ground
Two young resources who turned lives around
Including their own, earning widespread admiration
From those who have witnessed their transformation
Into what they have grown to become
Only to stare down a gun
Is surely the gravest mistake
It is human decency that is at stake.

Copyright (c) Allan Cropper February 2015

Many of us show concern when people visit our country and try to change or evade our laws or way of life, sad as it may be we should learn to respect the laws of places we visit.
Their age would not have been any consolation to the thousands of lives they would have wrecked if their venture had been successful.
Each to his own I suppose...

Each to their own