THE GAME OF LIFE

TRACKS OF TIME

Every country’s history
comes with tracks through swamps of shame.
The trees of national cohesion
derive their heart-wood
from blood let by committed ideologues
using others for their fodder.
Seldom have sufferers of liberty
been only those who write the pamphlets.
The expendability of any human life
– when there are so many and so much to gain –
has been a common choice.
In our present moment the mandate:
Money now!
has caused a bloodletting that shames us all.
This seductive necessity
has bound itself into the woof and weave
of every culture from ancient to postmodern.
Now millions pass away
with hardly a blip on the film of conscience.
The myopic glance at any others
was always clouded by a current naiveté.
To know enough to survive
in our own little corner of the world was enough,
wasn’t it?
Only when there were few of us
and we were separated by vast pieces of geography.
The facts of the current moment
demand a different approach,
and with this
a different level of integrity.
If one,
myself,
at all endowed with reason,
I must apply the appraisal of my being
to all others,
lest I lie to myself,
all others,
and my God.
In the shallow dishes of the sea’s waves,
waves reflecting millions and millions of human faces,
are born witnesses to the destruction of the ages.
If we lose one now,
we must suffer an agonizing pain of indifference.
Behold!
Lest we forget these tracks of time.

From Through the Swamps of Time: A Collection, Don Davison

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