Good and Wise

A poem written late 2015 which is extremely relevant today. The affair of the Begum girl who has been stripped of her nationality and who has received such vile abuse, even though she was below the age of consent when she made her fateful decision to go to Syria, springs to mind. When people rant on and on – on social media – without thinking through the consequences of their suggestions and without any moral basis for their statements, I feel disgusted. I make the point in this poem that we are all of some race, place and culture which are foreign to others. We should learn to profit from diversity not reject it!

The Good and the Wise
 
Let them profit not from our demise
Those that think themselves so wise
Who know not how to make mistakes
Who take no risks for others’ sakes
 
Let them happy be that they are free
To live in apparent immunity
Judged not upon their dubious acts
Though they judge others without the facts
 
Let them think one’s loss another’s gain
Those that feel no other’s pain
Who play this life as a game of chess
Where a win for white is a black piece less
 
For whom others’ acts are so plainly wrong
That no sentence may be said too long
Though they wish to throw away the keys
Let them dwell in delusion as it does them please
 
Sympathise with those that criticise
Who see their lives through their blinkered eyes
Who boast of how they could do much better
Than all those who try to work together

Let these critics talk amongst themselves
They that leave those books on shelves
That they say they have no need to read
For the words may vilify their greed
 
Let them seek to reap what they now sow
As about their lonely lives they go
Seeing evil exclusively in others
Treating only friends and family as brothers
 
For they themselves are from some place
Where they are of a certain race
They wear a specific uniform
And to curious customs they conform
 
So they can thus be identified
 By the very people they deride
Who think that they might evil be
Even guilty of gross treachery
 
For barriers affect no single mind
Indeed, they serve to divide mankind
There is always someone beyond the fence
And someone who will make more sense
 
So let us all agree to disagree
And accept that what the others see
May not comply with all our views
As we put ourselves in others’ shoes
 
Those opinions held so dear today
May, like the sand, be washed away
From feet that walk upon the beach
Beyond imagination’s reach
 
As the good reflect on what good means
And how wisdom to the wise man seems
Let’s ignore all those that bear a grudge
And be sceptical of those that rush to judge