Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box

I sometimes wonder at the world
And all the suffering so unheard;
Dead bodies in a lorry, just left,
And no one to mourn, be bereft;
And a mad killer shooting on TV:
Presenters killed for all to see;
There was the airliner crash earlier:
No sign the co-pilot being surlier,
Before he crashed the plane
Into the mountains, killing all;
All these deaths by man appall,
And yet they go every day;
Is there a death wish, our way,
Not that of the Tao, but fraught:
A nature that can twist, distort?
The history of mankind in blood:
All evil destroyed in the flood?
Not a hope. A myth of the Jew,
And its falsity, they know, few
Indeed survived the Nazi purges;
At least there are funeral dirges,
And we do not forget, or do we?
Some wish to destroy Israel, see
All her children dead and dust,
And think that is somehow just!
I fear to read the news, the carnage,
Nothing learned since Rome and Carthage;
It never seems to end, wars, death,
Such bloody visions like Macbeth;
And what can in all truth be said
To comfort when we see the dead?
As a boy I read the Greek stories:
Trojan War, The Heroes, glories;
Odysseus on the long way back;
Jason, Theseus, Procrustes rack;
But one stands out among the lot
Pandora opened the box, a blot
Set free upon the world, hate
Greed, lust, and so, so late
She closed the box, then heard
One last voice, a final word;
The word to be spoken very last,
After all black deeds were past,
Opened again, and out flew one
A sign that evil had not won
A winged sprite, small, and light,
Hope can make the world still bright.