Clay Tablets

A rendering of Hammurabi's Law.
Cuneiforms etched onto pliant clay,
the stylus having marked them with its claw.
A manual for those who go astray,
and those who, come what may, bring them to justice.
Our oldest penal code, eye for an eye.
The ancient king first codified the practice
of never letting any bygones by,
but surely wasn't first in application.
No, that must go way back, before the flood.
Before our tribe had use for rank or station,
we knew that blood must always answer blood.
Is it a wonder, then, that for our kind
it is the blind that tend to lead the blind?