Justice in a Time of Passion

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN JUSTICE

Justice in a Time of Passion

 

Justice is not angry

Justice is cool calm and calculating

It desires truth as the poet desires love

It leans on facts as the toddler

clings to her mother’s hand

 

Justice is not vengeance

It is a balancing of the account

It is an assurance that injustice

will not and cannot happen

without appropriate consequence

 

Justice is not the great redeemer

Justice is not the avenging angel

Justice is not an impassioned warrior

Justice is a blind woman with a scale

 

She serves no one’s cause

She answers no one’s call

She stills herself to listen

She absorbs all the facts

She measures their worth

and delivers her judgment

 

If justice does her job well

no one is fully satisfied

but we are empowered

to accept her decree

and move on