Horses

Dear Reader,

What I am about to tell you cannot be told in verse, perhaps not even in words, so I am going to try in prose.

On Saturday morning a young man half-walks, half-jogs into the mouth of a giant, steel-glass-and-concrete temple where other men and women worship gods of plenty every day of the week, and sometimes even on the in-between days, pulls the blade he brought with him and stabs six people to death.

In the images taken by cameras of those with steady hands, his eyes are dark and still.

Unseeing.

Then he, too, is dead.

Within minutes, he is the breaking news splashed across all the portals.

His slaughter makes it to the very top, passing the slaughters happening elsewhere; Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa. Past child exploitation, human trafficking, hunger, homelessness, displacement, desperation, wars, (named and unnamed).

For a few moments the world gasps and keeps its breath as bewildered officers of law and order try to dodge the questions about the young man’s years-long wrestling with mental illness, estrangement, drifting, futile attempts to reach out. These are unpredictable circumstances, they say, we are not resourced to deal with it.

And they are right - dislodged, wondering mind is indeed unpredictable and ordinary law enforcement are neither trained nor equipped to deal with it.

Would there be a different outcome if he, and many like him, were/are reached in time? Before they crossed the line they no longer recognise?

We can’t tell, they say.

Can’t we?

Is it really that hard to tell that when a human being suffers alone for years, a carnage is bound to happen? Is it?

Or is it perhaps that we have long abandoned the duty of care for those who cannot care for themselves? In favour of popular, and, most importantly, far cheaper solution of so-called community care. Which is to say, leaving disturbed minds and bodies to the care of untrained and often troubled, dysfunctional families, unpredictable communities, and sometimes well-meaning but always poorly resourced and trained volunteers.

The young man’s parents issued the statement expressing their concerns for the well-being of the law enforcement officer who killed their son.

But we have no time to ponder any of it for long.

A couple of days later, another young man walks into another place of worship and stabs the bishop preaching peace, love and tolerance as shown to us by Jesus Christ, with a blade he, too, brought with him.

He mutters a few words in Arabic and his face too, becomes the breaking news.

In their public statement, his parents claim to have no idea their son had been radicalised.

The angry mob gathers outside the church, calling for the youngster’s head.

The stabbed bishop issues a message of love and forgiveness. He, alone, asks his followers to be Christ-like.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but it seems to me the hardest call of all. To be Christ-like.

Some point to prophecies.

Some to omens appearing in the water, air, sky.

Some to fellow humans.

I watch the horses …

galloping through the teeming streets of London

a day after St. George’s Day

ebony black and pale white horse

running side by side

wild and riderless

nostrils flaring with fear,

tails swinging against the spring air

like flags

hooves bouncing off the concrete

beautiful strong bodies smashing against the steel, glass and concrete

until the blood runs down the broad, white chest and legs trained to obey

and still, he runs, with blood-stained flanks, edges of his mane

and I am sorry, so very sorry, dear reader,

for the horses.