Releasing Hope

 

There should be hope

The only thing left in the box,

Which means it lay with

All the evils for who knows

How long

I guess Pandora knows

And what were the evils?

Envy, sloth, gluttony?

Yet there’s nothing wrong in

Wanting, in ease, in eating

Maybe those evils were

Culture-specific

Mesopotamian, Egyptian

Greek

Maybe a foe

Such as Carthage

Or allies, such as

One city-state to another

Maybe it was treason

The treachery at Thermopylae

False promises that might

Surprise for being small

And murder

These are harder to analogize

Disloyalty, betraying one’s own

Taking lives

 

Unless hope might be

Dispensed without

Letting it go,

Then she should open the box

Once again

Let the creature rise

And take the Earth

Then the mission might be

Re-collecting evils, placing them

Back in the box

Maybe with an intern

From Olympus

(an intern team)

Who could

For and with them

Re-think the evils

Remember goodness before

The ruin

But then the gods

Would need to learn about

What is good against the pettiness that

Snapping or a wave

Can wreck for mortals

Mortals, too, once freed up some

Might receive reminders, too

Goodness and balance

Golden means on a silver path

The final thing

For the Athens school

For the Lyceum,

Let everyone in

To give the good a chance

Democratized

As was their theory, after all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by David Becker on Unsplash