Seven virtues, there are, to be acquired
For a happy, healthy human life.
Justice, one among them, is being fair and right;
It’s also a punitive measure to set right a wrong.

Social and personal peace hang on it,
A hard job, it is, to keep it from tilting.
The tact of kings Solomon and Vikramadithya
Is the wanted but rarely found gift in courts of law.

Petty thefts and waylaying plunders,
Minor assaults and gruesome murders
Meet justice in fines and flogging
Or prison term and hanging.

Yet many a wrongdoer goes scotfree;
A rapist very rarely is sued;
Seldom is a wifebeater disapproved;
Child labour laws are never enforced.

Manmade laws abound in loopholes-
Hairsplitting technicalities and callous practices
Make the goddess of justice holding the scales
Bind her eyes blind, perhaps.

Sure, we find it not proper
For the wicked and the mean to prosper
When the honest and the meek do suffer:
Justice seems an eluding enigma as ever.

Times there are when we wonder
If justice exists at all.
Can an eclipse rob the moon or the sun
Of its full glory and sheen?

Justice doth prevail unknown to many.
God, to execute it, has ways uncanny.
Guilt and remorse are slow avengers;
Each culprit doth face a sure reckoning.

The great bard Shakespeare scanned
The whole width and depth of human nature
And dramatically dispensed poetic justice
To a Hamlet, a Macbeth, an Othello and a Lear.

Wisemen have left us fables aplenty
That speak of nemesis and retribution.
Know the milkman who added water to his merchandise?
A simple monkey trick deprived him of the undue profit.

If only we watch shrewdly
And with patience of a lifetime
We may feel the wheels of justice
Turning on as sure as life and death.