Another date on the calendar, or is it just another date?
When 25 years ago, thousands of people dropped dead
Like flies swarming to those same dead bodies...
Today, they are but photographs and memories
Not lessons learnt and lessons that should have been learnt.
A toxic gas leaked they said, blinding, killing, maiming
Accidents happen. Deaths are inevitable.
But what of the generations of maimed we bring into this imperfect world?
Twenty-five years ago, the B&W photo of a child stunned by toxic fumes
Shocked living rooms across the world
Today the same child gazes out with those same haunting eyes
From the same B&W photo out of the same newspapers
It surprisingly fails to move me the way it did the first time
Something has snapped.
Is it the hope that things will change?
That the child’s life was not lost in vain?
It's all about numbers and facts.
So many dead, so many dying,
Chemicals with fancy names, fancier aims
Bleed people, day in and day out.
Poison water in a ghost town.
More children are born with the scar of a mistake made 25 years ago
More children will die, because that wrong was never righted
Because we have lost the will to fight for justice
Because we do not care any more about deaths, disease and despair
Because we have become numb to everything around us
Because we have to be worried about tomorrow's headlines & today's deadlines
Much deeper than the toxic wastes seeping into the ground
A cynicism has seeped into our collective existence.
We are all in a stupor, chasing a fading finish line
Where the only way to get is grab
Where the only progress is regressive
Where the only pleasure is pain
And where the only knowledge is ignorance.
Forgive us O unnamed child of
Who died in 1984 and lived forever after,
That we have failed you and so many others like you
That we have sacrificed your lives
In this race for some unnamed utopia that keeps us going.
Maybe there will be a time for redemption
Or maybe there is no Judgment Day
Till whatever the end, it's just another disaster
Just another anniversary
Just another date in just another yellowing calendar.
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