Whatever Comes

22 March 2024

It has been said and rehearsed that mankind is evolving,
that up the glass staircase of progress we tend,
but I fear that within us gnaws something familiar
from primitive times, which throws stones that could shatter
the staircase, whose fragments would rain down
and murder all those who live under it. Am I
just dreaming, or do you too feel it, the throb
of life dammed up inside living things great and small?
It could conquer us all, like it did when Saint Paul
said the stones would cry out after justice, but then what?
Rebuilding the same stair again, or rebuilding
glass cages again, or else onward to follies
we have not yet dreamed? I am cynical,
this you can tell, about Man's final purpose,
but I still believe in improvement, the struggle
of good against bad. It's just that there are no
godlike spectators, tipping the scales in one way
or another, and no covenant either, but just us
and what we have done. Can we live well this way?
I think I can, but you must decide for yourselves.
In the meantime, let's think, and not hurry in search
of replacements for gods that have died, but let time
in its time turn our clocks toward whatever comes.