HUMAN KIND

         
          Within a generation we may find
          Our species having learned to be aligned
          With the intentions of the Cosmic Mind
          And living peacefully as Human Kind.

A MORALITY TALE

  
   Who is it nowadays who seems to know 
   That isn’t shouting with a rooftop plea
   To advocate that “progress” has to slow,
   That Earth is facing an emergency:

   Too many mouths consuming more and more,
   Depleting and destroying vital goods,
   Clear enemies of what we should adore:
   The sky, the sea, the fruitful fields and woods.

   Yet commerce ever urges us to buy
   More things, more so-called “goods and services,”
   Whetting our appetites in hopes we’ll try
   What’s bad for everyone but “good for biz.”

        Now is the time for all of us to heed
        This soulful call for temperance, not greed.

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HUMAN POTENTIAL

         The first thing is to see how much we see,
         The full scope of our possibility,
         Or recognize instead it cannot be
         Determined—for it nears infinity.

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BEING AND BECOMING

    While other animals will manifest
    The essence of their being before long,
    What humans may become cannot be guessed;
    Presuppositions generally prove wrong.

    Though we are born with tendencies and traits,
    Proclivities and aptitudes innate,
    We are not bound toward any certain fates,
    Each one discovering his or her estate.

    Who we become, we slowly realize,
    Deciding and discovering as we go;
    Uniquely we determine and devise
    What character our personage will show.

         While other creatures are by nature bound,
         We humans are discovered, made, and found.

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 LOTUS

    What would the Buddha say of flourishing,
    A metaphor depicting that or this
    Wherein we find the most transcendent thing?
    He’d say it is the blossoming of bliss.

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LIBERAL EDUCATION

for Daniel R. DeNicola

   To nourish, flourish and then realize
   The fruits of education is the aim
   Of Academe—finally to grow wise—
   As sages and philosophers proclaim.

   Contentment, bliss and happiness elude
   Those who don’t resolutely seek and strive
   To find the ultimate beatitude,
   But merely sleep and feed to stay alive.

   To educate is to draw out what lies
   Within—inchoate, latent, impotent—
   Potentials we have yet to realize,
   Which myths and scriptures say are heaven sent.

        The aim of higher learning is to birth
        What’s great in us, and demonstrate its worth.

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LAP DOG / GOD PAL

    My little dog, as well as I, has mind,
    Intentions and proclivities inclined
    In certain ways expressing her own kind,
    In other ways uniquely it’s designed,
    Though somehow hers and mine are intertwined
    In ways that only God could have divined.

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