What is it?
What are we looking for?
What mountain remains before us?
What treasure have we not uncovered?
What land remains to be conquered?
Bile
rises from the gut.
Acid burns out
the digestive tract
of a healthy nation.
A nation too fat,
too happy,
too rich,
and too oblivious
to continue
on their own.
Sometimes
the most dangerous
thing about asking questions
are those who will come with answers.
The sculptor takes his chisel
and chases a flaw in the stone
until all he is left with
is gravel.
A cook tastes the dish,
finds it to be lacking something,
so, with a pinch here,
and a pinch there,
renders it inedible.
A mother bird,
dotes upon her chick,
attending every need.
As it grows,
it becomes dependent
and never learns to fly.
We ought to have learned
by now
the dangers inherent
in the righteousness of empires.
Every generation
seems to ignore the past.
Is there hope
to break the cycle
of subjugation
and exploitation?
Can technologies
free us
from ourselves?
Or are we hard wired
to go down this same path
repeatedly?
Learning painful lessons
that we in our turn
will forget,
and proudly
call it “Progress.”
DJR – 2022
