Compensation Required Poem by Mary Champion

SPEAKING OF HISTORICAL (AND CURRENT) WRONGS:

What about women
restricted by religion
for millennia?

Witches, heretics
brutally burned at the stake
for being other?

The wise old women
whose little knowledge was deemed
a dangerous thing.

The down-trodden serfs
almost as despised as slaves,
chattels of their Lord?

Gay and transgender -
ostracised and brutalised
even put to death.

The non-conformists,
those with independent minds
opposing the state?


The poor who struggled -
who fought for the right to vote
and for decent pay?


All of our brothers
exploited by fellow men
since the dawn of time.