Sunday, July 15, 2018

steps forward versus steps backward




superstition still can rule us

2600 years ago
some Greeks in what is now Turkey
found a way to use their minds as detectives:
faced with a world of mysteries,
they discovered how to think clearly enough
to grasp at answers as to how the world works,
to find the rules, the causes, before the effects,
the causes no longer just capricious gods
whining their way through our world,
thus were born: logic, mathematics, geometry,
excessive irrationality now treated as superstition,
as myth, no longer comforting, instead, obfuscatory,
red herrings that could lead us off the trail to truth,

as I watch hearings in Congress this week,
as I watch our determinedly willful President this week,
I see them as being ruled by fear and obstinate ignorance,
the heirs to the worst the Greeks thought to transcend,
the nightmares that we carry within us from our prehistory,

I hope that we can move forward with more steps
than the steps backward the lesser within us urge,

there is greatness within us,
how tragic it is that we can choose “leaders”
who call us only to the ignorant evil, also within us.

by Henry H. Walker
July 13, ‘18

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