Inhumanity

Cold cobblestones.
The square is empty save
listless ghosts shambling
here and there.

High above, hollow eyes blink
from blasted windows
open only to thin dreams,
mouths choking on memory.

Life was and now isn’t
warm circles of light,
lilt of music, laughter.

In humanity lies compassion
or at least recognition
that we are all connected,
links in an empathic chain
holding each other together,

but this is inhumanity,
where children carry stones
over the echoes of screams,
the crunch of shattered glass.

This is inhumanity,
where stars have fallen
onto threadbare cloth,
and sun is but a memory
of butter.