what of the future?

Lost & Not Knowing It

despair,
the dark doubter who scatters any blocks
who seek to build upon the other,
add different angles together and the base broadens,
a foundation becomes wide enough to hold our reaching-up,

fundamentalism, of any stripe, reduces thought and complexity
across the country and across the world,
I hope for better:
for knowledge to undo ignorance,
for love to undermine hate,
for empathy to open us all into a soul flexibility
that can deny the stasis of an adolescent rigidity
with my group being THE group,
my God the only God,

fear and denial of the stranger,

it is wonderful to have a belief,
a group that works for you,
how arrogant and blasphemous, however, to assume
and to act on that assumption that all others are wrong,

too many I know, and know of,
seem unable to grow and stretch
beyond the know-it-allness of Fox & Falwell,

I despair for our species
whose strength has been intelligence and adaptability,
our country finding one with many,
and now we cannot act unless the answer is “no” and exclusion,
our grandchildren’s grandchildren may pay a high price
for our following those who have lost their way,
and, like a lost person in the woods,
run faster and surer believing that’s the way.

by Henry H. Walker
November 26, ’09