The Unwritten Law
By John Herlihy

Humanity is bound together
By the holiness of an unwritten law.
Through hell and rough weather,
We follow a code that we never saw.
Bound together firmly by a tight weave;
Held together safely by what we believe.
The law reflects a collective responsibility
Of camaraderie and enduring kindness
That transcends the spirit of selfishness.
The code is Biblical in its depth,
Quranic in the extent of its breadth.
Protected by the heritage of centuries,
Its meaning veiled from its enemies.

Even wild animals abide by certain codes;
Poetry speaks of a universal law in odes.
And what is this unwritten law of which we write?
The words found engraved in cuneiform script
On a stone slab in the form of an index finger;
Now understood to be Hammurabi’s Code.
Everyone knew what was of them required;
The written and codified law dully inspired,
The ancient tribes of Hittites and Assyrians,
From the Near East unto the land of Babylon.

To reach out and extend a helping hand
To friends, to partners, to the likes of strangers,
To a child dressed in swaddling clothes in a manger.
A person may depend upon the hand of a rival,
Reaching out and offered to ensure his survival.
This is the unwritten law of the land
That for centuries has given humanity
The strength the world’s turmoil to withstand.
The mystery of endurance of the universal law;
Encoded in a fingerprint down to the cat’s paw.