An Encounter With Conscience

And what shall we do with this world,

You and I?

Will we twirl it ‘round our fingers,

Watch the spectacles go by?

See the stars and shapes of

A thousand years

Pass on and out of sight.

What have they to do with us?

We coheirs of the lot,

Yes you and I are all that counts,

Oh yes, you and I.

But wait, there I see the legions

Of mighty warrior’s past,

They conquer and they slaughter,

With civility aghast.

No matter though,

We all ought know,

The bruteness of their strides.

Never again will we fall away

To those turbulent, roiling tides.

For what matters most

Is that I hold you close,

And forget the world of strife;

And in the end you and I,

Yes, we will have the life.

Pay no mind to those pestering cries,

They too will fade away.

Their distress is naught but heathen lies,

Intended to get their way.

Their sorrows are a sham,

Their tears a sick charade,

I won’t fulfill demands,

Nor myself degrade.

For you and I,

We rest above,

This rubbish and this mess.

Their sickly fingers

Stay far away,

And for this, I count us blest.

And see there the words of men,

Whose ideas define the laws,

Of width and weight and collagen,

Of rainfall and its cause.

See there how they change,

With the turn of every age,

Yet their truthfulness not doubted,

And even reckoned sage.

And alongside them, the pondering ones,

Who squint and wonder, “Why the sun?

And why us now? And why he there?

And how does a circle fit a square?”

They point and state, “This is so.”

While another laughs a hearty, “No!”

But enough of that, let’s turn away,

The right and wrong is not to say.

Why do you look distraught, my love?

Why this troubled glance?

You seem as if these specters haunt

A realm where change has chance.

But what will you have us do?

To blast these bounds asunder,

To tear this world in two?

Why break these chains so taut,

Why question what is so?

We’re taught what’s ought and surely not,

Can this not suffice to know?

But I see you there,

Your stare austere,

In a fire moved to move;

To shake the mountains

And release the fountains

Of flowing fortitude.

Who am I to stop you now?

Your mind is set, your head is bowed.

Just know that I forewarned you here,

To seek not what is not sincere.

For every grapple of the world without

Will clutch and claw at every doubt,

But with heart assured, your cost to pay,

God save the fool who’s in your way.