At Humanity's Door Poem by Adrian Flett

At Humanity's Door

Without bias or malice then
the children that once we knew
mixed and met, with those others
who became different as we grew.

The language we all knew,
though in culture and hue
different. Apart separate we
dwelt; us here, them over there.

Customs beliefs of the past,
through teaching learning,
supposedly we have cast,
they still embrace believe.

In mind's deep recess lie the terrors
that lurch slither and reign,
over our being's very core to
surface unwanted, but ever remain.

How to free ourselves from those bonds,
rid the rule of deep powers that store,
build defences against our efforts
to shed, what we should abhor.

Is it within us to hope to be
beings that do no evil or wrong.
Are we meant to be model mortals
where all will be equal, all belong.

But history tells us a different tale;
it's not possible to be one with each other
to gloss over, submerge and curtail
those differences that somehow prevail.

But what if we can never achieve,
as we grieve, the goals we perceive;
those standards we never fulfil
by any humans' measure.

So where do we lay blame - religion, race, colour
culture, language or just at humanity's door;
excuses and failure to achieve lie
there as we continue to explore.

19/05/2019