johnirons: A poem by Elly de Waard

THE TWO SCALE PANS

I once heard a wise man

remark (it was

the poet Leo Vroman)

it makes no sense to

spend time bemoaning your fate

since nature knows nothing

of justice whatsoever.

I’d like to put

this more concisely. To

begin with he is quite right.

Although it might well be that

nature knows what is just

in the sense that she strives

for balance. The scales

of Lady Justitia

have for her no

moral values, but rather

the gravity

of the earth and the utter

velocity of light.

She is the weighing process

as it were: she sets aright

but she holds her tongue.

johnirons