Tag Archives: Morality

The Many-Colored Way

I said, "Can't you see that it doesn't
matter to me if you run your sword
through my soul?"

She asked, "Are you so certain
in your monkish response
that pain will no longer matter?"

I answered, "Somewhere there is
no concern between what is right
and what is wrong."

She said, "Those who believe so
practice dancing on graves
in the middle of the night."

I apologized, "My sleep was full
of dark dreams meant only 
for those who cherish pain."

She said, "Try walking down avenues
paved with stones of many colors
each sharper than razor blades."

Ought

I said, "I realized this morning
that my shadow of control
feasts on Ought energy."

She said, "That is the Way
it ought to be."

I said, "Even the most basic
'Be mindfuls' come from 
the place of Oughtness."

She said, "We act surprised
when we discover how closely
Is and Ought dwell together."

I asked, not expecting an answer,
"Ought we not try to begin again
so as to avoid the Imperative?"

She answered, "Or perhaps
we must ask the vegetables
how we ought to grow."

Before the Sun Rises

How is it that people being ordinarily moral cause
universal suffering?  I have been the recipient of 
those looks implying I hold all real virtue in the room
and, frightened, I excused myself by running in 
terror through any open door I could find.  Indifference
to the fate of self is one way to seek the welfare of others.
Another is to challenge the pride that tends to grow
when in the midst of a group.  What is rare, not at all
normal or to be expected, if found, should make things
easier.  At least that is what I have been told.  How can
the words of a poem be sinful, as in missing the mark, 
while alleviating the suffering of another?  So many
point their fingers at the greatest immorality of society
without any sense of ought or thou shalt.  Their versions
of harmony come before me bland and without reason.
Give me instead a note from a daughter thanking me
for taking her out to lunch or to live again the morning
when I lay on the floor with a baby resting and drowsing
on my chest as I rubbed her back, both of us tired from
waking before the sun came up to lighten the day.