Call me a fool,
A wretched idealist;
A liberal tool,
An utter unrealist.
Your labels fall short;
Your arrows won’t pierce.
Why must we distort
Compassion so fierce?
When did we cease
Believing we could
Be a power for Peace,
Doing all that we should?
When did progress become
Our enemy’s name,
Abandoning some
Just to keep things the same?
I pray we will turn
And pursue a new road.
I pray we will learn,
That our wounds may be sewed.
Jordan is a poet, Quaker, full-time Dad, and personal trainer from Dallas, Texas. He lives with his wife and toddling whirlwind of a son, plus Skittles the Bird and The Management (Luna and Lasik, the cats). His poetry can be viewed on his blog, The Hopeless Devotional (https://hopelessdevotional.com/posts/); he also has a published book of poems, Sacred Days, available at https://www.blurb.com/b/10238733-sacred-days.
This poem reminded me of yet another rebel soul by the name of Percy Bysshe Shelley. A Romantic poet and idealist, he sought to open his contemporaries’ eye by writing about the world and its illnesses. His greatest verse is “Poets are the unknow legislators of the world”. Do you agree with him?
❤
Thank you, Luna, for this poem. I guess I’m not the only wretched idealist…
Stay safe,
-Shira