Salman

He said he thought laughter was an antidote
to fanaticism — that to the zealot nothing is funny.
And I’ll admit I liked the notion when I first heard it:
that something so sweet and warm and just plain silly
could save us.
Of course, there are different sorts of laughter —
there is the cruel, braying, derisive.
Joyless.
It’s more than a year since they tried to kill him.
He’s been hounded, hated for nearly forty
for the sin of laughing at their solemn sacredness.
In his eyeglasses one lens was darkened
to conceal the eye they blinded.
Who was it said pursuit of an eye for an eye
would leave the whole world blind?
Was that supposed to be some kind of joke?