In the Shadow of Greatness ~ Philip Brent Harris
~~~~~
What have I to offer you
that no one has ever thought of?
The truth we know, says nothing,
and it hardly even matters.
Each new day bring fresh vision,
as all babies’ first cries echo
every sunrise we have known,
yet they speak a language death understands.
Hope tells us to hold on,
as love is found inside us,
in a place that we thought barren.
And though we love each other,
this is something else entire.
Like a god would love their children,
So we, at last, may perceive the plan.
Still, we watch and wonder
how our parents ever did this,
when each cough or sneeze
plants the fear of death within us.
We would face the crisis
If we stood before the wall
And the world took aim to kill us
It would not matter that we fall.
When each new life before us
Is woven in our heartbeat,
feels too precious to relinquish,
though we know that we stand powerless.
Yet, we would lay down in the street
And die among the masses,
if it saved a single sublime new breath.
I cannot understand then
how we fail to see the glory
of each sunrise and each sunset.
The night sky filled with brilliance,
and that each star is a rising sun
in some distant place of being,
whether populated planet
or a barren chunk of rock debris.
Still, it sings of wonder,
though we act too blind to see it.
We see only what’s before us,
and, even then, some still deceive us,
place themselves and fleeting pleasures
before future generations
and the glory of the morning,
if it’s bright or gray and overcast.
So, the raindrops fall like sorrow,
poison all the land beneath them.
Which grows stunted, toxic plants
And, for the future, all we bequeath them.
The wind blows hot and dusty
as it fans another fire.
Or it spins around, roars fury
that we cannot face in silence.
Yet, we don’t care enough
to perceive this, our lives so small.
so petty, given breath we never breathe.
Still, the world warms around us
as it would and has before.
But we’ve hastened the arrival
of melting ice caps, seas smothering our shores.
Though in time this will reverse,
send earth spinning through another cycle
We will be long-gone, then
and utterly forgotten, though
it will no-longer matter
that we could have
changed, acted differently.
We would and will, still pass away.
That is the way we’re made,
Each, from vast galaxies to atoms.
All will know their final moment.
And you’d think, since we believe
we’re the only beings, we know,
who contemplate their future,
that we might want to be in it.
That we’d take steps to not only
ease our daily burdens, but also
to ensure that we survive.
Could we choose a life that flows
more easily for us and all the others
of this world and future generations.
I have read that Einstein posited
insanity is repeating the same actions
and expecting results to differ.
We must stop pretending we do not move the world.
Will we never learn that change is natural,
time and tide, constant as the seasons.
We will all change then together,
not only humans, but the cosmos.
But we stuff our ears with noise,
all the babble, so-called leaders,
pundits and talking, talking, talking heads.
And, we never ask them, tell them,
to change in ways that will make living better
for us and all around us
each and every single thing, all part
of a land, a reality that defeats us,
where sky and earth live in perfect harmony.
We understand that land and sea
are ordered by great geologic forces,
and stars and moons and comets,
are part of this same land, alive inside each other.
And this land is all around us, indeed,
it permeates right through us.
It is the universe entirely, yet
we have in no way found its worth.
Let us all hope we grow together,
mature in time to see our children
live the lives that we would wish for them.
As every parent has always done before.
~~~~~
Peace is Purpose, Nonviolence is Strength, Diversity is Unity, Empathy is Empowerment
~~~~~
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