They tell me I don’t know
how to make a better world
from this one, or that at least
I never speak of a better one or how
to find it; they can’t see my fear
that if I spoke of it, wrote of
what I see of the path ahead,
talked (no matter how gently)
of a new world and how it must
be built on the razing of this one,
they’d lock themselves into a closet
with their favorite artifacts and their slim hope
and not come out again — and they’d
never hear me when I say that I see
the new world, and the path to it; I talk about it
all the time. I have nothing but hope, in fact;
I just know that if we’re going to get there,
one step is the erasure of the artifacts of this one,
and no one wants to hear about
the need to let go.
Dark Matter 
December 2nd, 2015 at 12:22 pm
Brilliant, I can feel the hope of some seeping from the gap in the closet door… sometimes I must stuff rags at the base of my own.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:37 pm
I guess getting around either/or thinking seems like the first challenge.
Communication in a way that doesn’t evoke an immediate digging in and throwing up walls, so some small common ground can be found for a beginning.
Most of the world has already lived in war zones which seems to me to qualify as serious pain, but doesn’t seem to have accomplished much.
I do figure America’s time will come for that again. But I’m not sure that will change much on the world stage. Suffering can be, but isn’t necessarily redemptive.
I grew up having my home bombed because my father as a newspaper editor supported baby steps toward integration. In the 60’s when I worked at the NAACP and went between affluent whites and the SNICK AND CORE members coming through with the Poor People’s March on Washington, I was convinced we were headed for a race war unless a miracle happened. Now, I see Martin Luther King as that miracle. And my grandchildren are literally color blind when it comes to friends. Having lived in the south since the 1930’s, that is the most hope giving thing I’ve experienced in my life time.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:20 pm
Hmm. Was that what Karl Marx was about? It was such a good theory, almost Christ like. Then they plugged human nature into the theory and the rest is history. I guess my vision has become focused on doing whatever we can to help humanity evolve….even if it is an inch at a time in the time frame of eons. And the key to me is recognizing that truth is paradoxical and opposite stances need to be reconciled not in favor of one or the other, but in recognizing the shared goal of survival in a bearable world and working on how to use the gifts/ideas of opposites to make progress toward the goal. I don’t have much hope that humanity will become truly philanthropic any eon soon, but the worse things become the better the chance may be that people will be willing to actually work together imperfectly in an imperfect world to survive and create at least a more bearable world for us all.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:22 pm
I’m not sure how Marx figures into this but…yeah. I have plenty of hope. I just know that whatever comes next is only going to be reached thru some serious pain.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:49 pm
Wrote a long reply. But it disappeared. May be for the best.
I like dialogue. Grew up with a Dad that would ask my opinion then take the opposite side to make me think, even if he actually agreed with me.
But frankly I agree with you about the serious pain.
My hope comes from the change in race relations in my life time. My home was bombed because my newspaper editor father supported a black woman for a place on the school board to represent the black schools in Houston, Texas in the 50’s.
I went between affluent rabid racists among my friends to SNICK and Core group extremists when I worked for civil rights in the 60’s. I was convinced we would have a bloody race war unless a miracle happened. I realize now that Martin Luther King was that miracle.
My grandchildren are color blind when it comes to friends.
Having lived in the south all my life from the 30’s to now, that is the most hopeful reality I know.