Poet's response to Lao Tzu, Ch. 5

AS YET

Spin around and you will see

the good guys

Cranking up their chain saws

sharpening drill bits

loading incendiary bombs

See the good guys pouring fire

from the sky

dropping stunned and silent

trees to their knees

punching leaking oil holes

beneath the seas

Spin around and you will see

how the good guys make us

weep

But do not judge, just meditate

or go to sleep

As yet, we are too

incompetent, some of

our teachers are wont

to preach,

To understand ...

To comprehend the greater

good: the kids at

home, Mom and Dad,

(whom the bankers, now,

have come to own).

Too incompetent, as yet, to

perceive the benign

necessity of keeping global

slave markets free;

The stocks and bonds that

must be sold for "greater

goods", like splintered lumber

to foreign lands.

So, as is brilliant and just,

some teachers walk among

us suggesting, in the interest

of careers? Or is it sanity?

We ought not judge because

we are, as yet

Too blind to see,

Too ignorant to understand.

- don brennan TAO CH. 5