IF

If you use bombs that when exploding spray
A thousand darts called flechettes, overhead,
Knowing that such will obviously flay
The skin from flesh of children who have fled
From homes you phoned to say, “Go! Run away!
We’re targeting your house but can’t say why!”
If you wipe out whole towns within a day,
Destroy civilian lives then spread the lie,
That you can’t help it, they were human shields.
Then you’re less than the swine that you don’t eat,
More led and less than sheep within your fields,
More stupid than the slogans that you bleat;
If you herd people, trap them in their lands,
Denying them utilities and aid,
Then you create a debt you never planned:
Blood money’s interest, accrued and paid;
Destroy your hearts while you destroy their wells,
Or, knowingly bomb their schools and hospitals,
Then bring upon yourself your future hells
That will return your own mercy, in full;
If you use bombs tipped with uranium
On simple plaster houses by the sea,
Or drop white phosphorous, fierce as the sun,
You cease to be part of humanity;
If you have gained their world, without a care,
Staked out their land, consciously undermined
The dignity of all whom once lived there,
You lose the soul that made you humankind;
If you imprison nations and won’t swerve
To find a human way, which you can do,
Know that you get what you do not deserve:
The pure compassion they may offer you.