How do you make peace with a bad ending? - Phil Wolfson

[Larry Robinson]

How do you make peace with a bad ending?

How do you make peace with a bad ending?
When all you fought for is going south
And domination tramples
What was that old saw?
The rich get richer….
Who says he wasn’t a visionary?

When bad ideas are taken as guidance
The sacredness, the preciousness
Of lives lived
Is preferred less than
Killing those who don’t believe
Or are in my way
Or with whom I don’t agree

When the bewitching of minds
The creation of false desires
Is even more successful
Battered into alignment with bad tv
Stupid and petty desire making
Cultures that are not cultures--
Just masking the profit machine
The buffoon Mussolinis arising 
Like pins on a Mercator projection

And the consequences are obvious
Planet as we don’t know it
Nuclear run by idiots 
Put in power--as if there can be any trust
Or insulation from their wills.

It should have been obvious
A great victory at hand--
Domination and discrimination
Of all sorts 
Creates only more misery and fractured
Dismembered lives and spirits
Or simply obliterates those in the way.

How can it only be obvious to some?
It seems so clear.
Aggression, hate, rebounds
Read Shantideva.
Study the Bodhicaryāvatāra,
Feel the cost of your own anger and aggression.
If you know it 
you can know your own misery and aggressiveness
Work it out
Or let it go
Move on.
Treasure your own clarity and
Spread it by example.
Humbly
Recognizing
Truly how stupid 
I can be—at times

However bad it is out there
I am still capable of independence
And examination
Of an ethical life
Of love and fun
Of nurturance and sharing.
This belongs to me!

Remember Mandela surviving
Robin Island
Emerging with compassion
Integrity 
And guts.
Admire those who are admirable--
Accepting that we all have
Some clay in our feet.

Please pardon my wistfulness--
I still hope for the bad ending
To turn
To let me turn to mold
As happy manure
Feeding another generation
And wishing them well
My son, my friends.
All the great good ones
Trying to figure out how to live
Loving, thoughtful lives
Respecting others
And having fun while
Marching and misbehaving.
Breaking the rotten eggs
Militant for what is now
And will always be true.
We are connected
And we can do a lot with knowing that.

Happy Trails!

	- Phil Wolfson