Intelligent Life

So here we are, all of us:

Midway up the mountain we call progress,

Overcrowding a circular trail that girds it.

In the past we’ve been able to think about

And build imaginative ways upward.

Now just hanging on saps all our energy.

Once, only favored individuals, clans,

Nations, religions could climb this high.

Now, thanks to colonies and markets.

Shrunken distances and a webbed globe,

The narrow trail is suddenly crammed.

Everyone wants on, now - or soon enough.

And why not? That’s what the favored promised

As they warred, invested and asked for emulation.

Once, if the uppity got to near to their heels

The barons tossed them back where they belonged.

Now the excluded climb to the trail knowing

The connection between aspirations and weapons:

They bring their tunnels and their doctrines with them.

What goes unnoticed is that salvation and status

Count less than mutual destruction:

Both offense and defense tear chunks

Off the edges that rim the common trail.

Humankind’s perch becomes precarious

Constricted by multiplying manifold dangers.

We will never know what’s at the top

Of the mountain until we get there.

We can dream of equality for all,

Of the return of benign sovereigns, of

Handmaidens aplenty or unending football.

But we’ll never find out if we destroy ourselves

Before we can climb to the answers.

Sure, solutions are tough. All the more reason

To enlist everyone in building the trail upward.

That would be the intelligent choice. And besides

The way things are going, it’s the only one.

Aw, come on, you say: That’s weak idealism.

We’re talking about the real world.

Okay, I say, have a real look around.

If this is where exclusion has brought us,

We’d be better off with something else.

How about pragmatic mutual interest,

Even working with those beneath us?

Can you think of anything with better odds?

                   Charles B. Neff

                  August 21, 2014