Homo is not yet Sapiens
Some see this birthing-dying world
as a blaze of beauty.
Some call it dark and dense.
Some feel mainly Grace,
some toil and pain.
But some
—no, most—
to soothe their fear and vulnerability,
apply for membership
on well-muscled teams,
ones made fit for fight
(euphemized as noble combat)
which jockey against
one or more foes,
clear-cast as “other,”
while anointing themselves
as the chosen champions
of truth and right.
But these tribal teams,
self-deemed to be so different,
do they not self-hypnotize,
in equal measure?
And do they not
make a much-the-same-sounding din,
even as they hear
their own harsh soundings as
—can it be: music—
(if only to their own ears)?
There is, however, another voice,
the One who speaks and sings,
clear chords from above.
She is mostly unheard.
But we could, yet, and instead,
listen to Her, the heavenly Sophia.
She who is Wisdom whispers this:
“Homo is not yet sapiens,”
or … but rarely
“And She asks us
to ask ourselves,
What if … ???”
What if our own finger-pointing tribe,
though sometimes right in part,
is equally, and inevitably,
partly wrong?
And what ifwe would give our self-appointed tribes
—all of them—
far less credence,
and a far less pervasive
embrace and authority,
given their mere partiality?
And when will we cease
our attempts at framing
the major things
of existence and Being
in the forms of fixed and certain
creeds and convictions?
And when will we learn to forswear
our habituation to proclaiming,
as clear and final truth,
merely partial views
and senescent oppositions?
And when will we—newly—learn, instead:
to speak less and listen more,
to accept uncertainty,
to allow discomfort,
to trust the Larger,
to choose kindness,
to live for Love,
to release, now and now again,
any form of judging,
and any and all inflictions
of the addiction
to doing hurt and harm?
Newly learn we can.
The pathway there is Now.
Anthony Acheson, Greensboro
