I saw your puffy lips,
stubbles for your hair;
I looked into your eyes,
to the soul still dwelling there

I listened to your sister
tell how three assaulted you,
had tied you to a tree
and with fire had burned you through

I listened with rapt horror;
how could man so do?
What evil could beset him
to maim one six and two?

Yes, eight years old you were,
a babe bare from the breast
when three much older burned you
and left you much, much less

Through life you now must go
a monster to our eye,
skin grafted onto bone,
pain shrieking to the sky

I gave a paltry twenty
to help you in distress,
but I have prayed e’er since
that you would suffer less

Twenty more I’d gladly give,
one thousand, even more,
if I could see you healed
and settled of the score

“Forgive,” He said, “forgive,
forgive and nothing more,
if you forgive each other,
you’ll owe me nothing more”

“Nay, my Lord,” said I,
“I long to see your justice,
where eye be given for an eye
and hurt for ev’ry instance

“Where burn be answered with a burn
’till they go mad, insane
I long to see the torture turn
their worm to writhing pain

“A boy thirteen, his uncle 40,
their friend in his mid-twenties,
tied this young boy to a tree,
and ruined his future history

“They poured out gas and lit a match
that burned all recognition;
How can it be reality
that we should just forgive them?