October 31-B, 2022

There have been 
wrongs without reckoning
throughout the history of the species.
Bearing witness to injustice
is all that is left 
to mark the occasions
and call out the offenses 
of all crimes against humanity,
from the beginning until now.

It would take the rest of time,
just naming them.

There needs to be a Wailing Wall
in every hamlet, village, settlement
where people gather
promising to do right by one another,
and do wrong,
where annually read are the names
of the oppressors and the oppressed,
to mark what has happened
for all to remember and mourn.

Mourning is all that is left us
who know what has been done
and refuse to let it die.

We need rituals of remembrance
to call out again
the names of those 
with no shame,
no remorse,
no regret,
damned to be seen
and shown to be who they are
publicly,
year after year
through all the ages of remembering
without forgetting
the appalling, horrendous, abhorrent
and abdominal,
declaring forever,
"We know who you are!
We know what you have done!"

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