The Lights Come on Across the Way

It is evening. People do some things.
Various creatures do other things.
The sunset on the cliff does its thing.

Be glad you cannot hear the people
Doing their various people things.
The main thing the people do is judge.

They stand in judgment of each other.
They sit in judgment of each other.
The powerful and the weak all judge,

Although the weak don’t mete punishment.
Just the powerful mete punishment.
You turn your head as you think on this,

The asymmetry of all judgment,
And you swallow back the bitter taste
Of your wretched urge for punishment.

It’s too dark to see other creatures.
Bare branches drag black veins through the sky.
It is evening. The night does its thing.