How Will You Influence The World?
How will you influence the world
When you are ‘gone and buried’?
Who has gotten there
Where he or she has a desire
To affect the world at all`?
Stuck in mire as we are;
The muck and mire of illusion,
Acquired and admired sins,
Their genes within:
Lust, sloth, gluttony, wrath and envy,
Greed and pride (the hidden bride).
How will you have helped the world,
Transformed, shaped, guided?
What will you have left behind
As means to sculpt the heart and mind?
Who is even in the ’hood* of being good,
Of having fine and noble thoughts,
Of knowing all the ‘do’s’ and ‘oughts’?
Who thinks ahead
Beyond the minutes in his head?
Very few.
(not even you)
Admit it!
Now, to give a prick, a needle’s stick, perhaps the trick:
(Not that I’m any better, I myself a debtor
To the owner of this world),
I ponder nowadays, how best to raise
The welfare of our children’s children
Who’ll inherit our milieus in
Time.
Never praise the craze of progress,
Nor the vulture of our culture,
Nor the aim at fame and high-ness
But develop breadth and kindness,
Thus to influence the world.
How Will You Influence The World? 8.25.2022 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin
*neighbourhood
Arlene Corwin Poetry 