DREAM DRIVEN

      While other beings are driven by their drives,
      Responding automatically to prods
      Because whoever doing so survives,
      We humans at our best have followed gods:

      Ideas and ideals have led us on,
      Conceptions we have fashioned mentally
      To guide and goad us toward some paragon
      That works to alter our reality.

      Though if our driving dreams are ill-conceived
      Phantasms of a paranoic mind,
      Irrationally invented and believed,
      We need to trade them for a wiser kind.

           Our race will only prove ourselves supreme
           When we are guided by the kindest dream.

*