Schweitzer's Legacy
by Michael Doyle

What if it was
That we're not meant for strife
But rather, instead
To live in reverence for life?

Would we really need
To argue the unnecessary why
Of who decided
The creation of the hippopotami?

Or, is it quite enough
To know that we've a right to exist
And then cherish life enough
To let that notion persist?

Life should be approached
Living completely in the awe
Of remembering reverence
Is ethically needed for all to keep and recall

Stepping not further inward
But, to begin to be more deliberate
Moving and reaching ever outward
And isn't technology its own debate?

The biggest lesson 
Taught but forgotten in modern history
Is that we must retain our control
And not be mastered by technology

Mindless in our inattention
Caging in the strength of creativity
Dicing atoms to the splitting of our destruction
Spawned not by thoughtfulness but reactivity

Goodness will never be allowed to stand in the way
Of the mundaneness of hate filled mediocrity 
This is the lesson taught by Big Technology
The story played of our world's modern history

Tied to it as it forms our own mass destruction
Heeding only this amoral drive of technology
Instead of principled, considered instruction
The quest to become our own Gods is perversity

I would rather a dug out canoe than deny humanity
Mindlessly failing as we do to learn from history
Vacuous chat holding the unconquerable lessons unlearned
As we let innocents die as if we have never discerned

The truth of all that is good and evil put simply
Free spirits blown free as cheap attempts at divinity
Pretending at wisdom splashed in the paint of error
This then is Schweitzer's legacy to our enfeebled terror

I thought I heard someone say there's no way out of here
Maybe it was me as I wiped away my last remaining tear
But it was probably someone else just a tad bit wiser
An echo as it were of the late great Albert Schweitzer

(c) January 26, 2021  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved