which little voice within?

what do we hear?

what little voice within

do we hear?

do we follow?

in an adult sureness of the cast within them,

we ask middle schoolers

about their conscience,

the impulse inside to do right,

the one that counsels us

to choose the better path,

to get off the wrong one,

we envisage a simple design

with two paths before us:

the self-centered one, the baser,

the nobler one, the purer,

then kid after kid denies our naiveté,

because for them the little voice within

shouts to doubt self, to fear the moment,

that voice undermines every brick

placed to reach higher, surer,

replaces every “I can” with “I can’t”,

distorts every self-image into caricature,

every rightness into wrongness,

every fullness into emptiness,

to distance ourselves from such a loud voice

we need quiet and stillness, and support,

so that we can hear and follow another little voice within,

one who gets us to raise our hand, 

to venture something new,

to see the other and reach out a hand,

to be unselfconscious like a flower,

and to just be beautiful.

by Henry H. Walker

January 17, ‘20