Mankind is setting limits on itself.
No more than a stadium of people
per acre.
Each person is allotted the care
of one tree.
War is outlawed.
Nor more than one world war
per generation.
The list is as long as an
anaconda snake.
As poisonous as a black mamba.
As democratic as a mob
hanging an opponent upside down,
cursing the cost of rope.
If the human condition is shameless,
it inherited the wind,
but deep in the tree is the burl
with its exquisite swirls.
For the gratuity of hatred,
there is incomparable love.
Its touching diffidence.
Its augurs progress that we see
the excess of our crimes.
The precarious wonder of beautiful
here and there.
Love that wanders lost
but finds a place worth life.
The limits we set mean nothing.
Barbarity, more or less, is barbarity.
But a light left in the window
is a species apart,
rare and consoling,
and never enough.