Visions Of Utopia

Visions of Utopia (a conversation)

Those lofty castles built on slavers' fees
Are not for me,
Nor fine deep forests
Where the hunters roam.
-

We dream of freedoms
Holding constant peace,
Where children sing
To elders at sweet ease
In sunny gardens...
-

Utopian visions! Who is equal there?
Can "gentlefolk" who wish to rest or muse
Achieve such joy without the servitude
Of workers bringing oil and clothes and food?

We are that species with the hellish power
To make things change from boredom, greed, or lust...
-

Or is it fear that makes us lock our gates
and threaten others whom, we guess, we hate?
-

Do lambs look on us as their saving gods?
Or calves . wrenched from their mothers, moments old?
Each spring the dams lament for long crying nights.

Can humankind
(Explorers ever meddling with our world)
Succumb to live in Eden
Which surrounds us as we kill?

A sprawling hand that metes out war
Too easily erases sights
That once gave all a taste of hope-
Cathedrals , temples, where we went to dream
Of perfect moments, privately,
Or touched a hint of glory in a priest-led prayer,
So quickly crumbled...

Fields edged with poison
Hold lost pastorals.
The rising melody
Of springtime's birds
Becomes a memory.
-

Utopia with rules
To hold the cruel ones back?
-

CAN this be best for ALL
Since it would lack
The power to stop excesses
That THEY cannot see?
Their heaven's not designed
To give equality.
-

The circle closes.
Colluders have no rights
To live perfection
Since we create night.
-

My friends, you think of this so narrowly!
Utopia's in every breath and sigh.
So let me tell you my thoughts warily:
We even find perfection as we die

If every moment we attend the sound
Of dawn's full opening-and -best-
Embrace with loving arms each friend around
And all who show us how to live with zest.

THEN nobody would call for bloody war
Or kill for "pleasure" , paying no regard
To others' rights to love lost Eden's store
Of glory still, although so much is marred.

If every moment promises a rose
Utopia's found in every thing that grows.
----

So soft and sweetly bade the friends farewell
And went their ways, musing so wistfully
On what was said, hoping to find a way
To search out gently, and with fine regard
To others' needs, to share all equally
With generous hearts, in equanimity.