Collective Conscience

Our collective consciousness calls to me.

It cries in chaotic voices, "Set my Joy Free!"

"Too much killing, too much blood,"

"the voices of the dead cry like a flood!"

"and I am drowning in my conscience."

 

I hear friends say; "I don't want to hear!"

"This collective voice it cries with fear!"

My friend tells me he doesn't want to be part of their voice

That he fears the moral bonds;

 

They see consciousness as a poisonous Borg

An angry mob of voices driving hate and war.

 

But I hear the voices mumbling in my ear.

They are the voices of our fathers and mothers,

...our grandparents and long dead ancestors,

crying to us from the ground.

 

And we'd best be listening to their sound

There is no need to fear.

Spirit is wind and rain and sunlight.

Joined with mass it lets life dance.

 

Yes, the evil should be afraid, but not the good.

The voices are clamoring but they must be understood!

Yes, those moral bonds are of Iron my friend.

We can dance on the rings above an approving crowd

Or they can grab us like shackles and drag us down

 

Those mortal bonds are of Iron my friend.

They can lift us up or drag us down.

Our bodies are mortal and going to corrupt and die,

but our hearts are of wind and can fly!

And when we do the Right thing,

The winds carry our voices out to eternity.

 

And when we act collectively based on our better lights

We build artistic battlements, and spires that seem to dance and shine

Out of drab wood, stone and metal something lovely and fine.

Some myths we can make reality. Some Fairy tales can be made true.

When we hear a story we need not become slaves to the story teller.

When they tell us history repeats itself,

that doesn't mean we are shackled to repeat the past

Only that it is time to learn from it, and learn from it fast.

 

For John Done Said it, so long ago:

"Perchance he for whom this Bell tolls,"

"may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him;"

"And perchance I may think my self so much better than I am,"

"as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me,"

"and I know not that."

 

"The Church is Catholic, universal,"

"so are all her Actions; All that she does,"

"belongs to all."

"When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me" ...

 

"who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings?"

"But who can remove it from that bell,"

which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?"

 

"No Man is an Island, entire of it self;"

"every man is a piece of the Continent,"

"a part of the main; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea,"

"Europe is the less,"

"as well as if a Promontory were,

as well as if a Manor of thy friends,"

"or of thine own were; Any Man's death diminishes me,"

"because I am involved in Mankind;"

 

"And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;"

"It tolls for thee."

[John Donne: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-donne]

John Done Poem not written by me, but rest is

Christopher H. Holte

Read About John Donne here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-donne