Sense—and Sense
The thoughts that clamor in our heads can drown
The softer senses that are needed still.
So also, surges of emotions blind
Our inner eyes to things that each should see.
And so we’re snared in tangles, or replace
The fuller views, with all their hues and shades,
Their whole perspectives, and their small details,
With caricature-sketches—mere cartoons.
These simplify our views but may obscure
The wider, deeper, sharper sight we need
To judge and act with fuller knowledge—skew
The balanced wisdom that we truly need.
They prejudice and blind us so we lose
Our empathy and sense of justice—guides
That steer our thoughts and words and deeds.
And so we’re blinded, shorn of sense and heart,
Let go of ethics, joy in cruelties…
******
We each are mortal and are limited
But can, by seeing, listening, absorb
The views of others—part of what they’ve seen—
And so expand and deepen how we see
The world we share—the world we all are in.
A while ago, we humans learned to write
And read—and this can surely serve us still.
So books can speak across the centuries,
As letters bring us words from distant zones.
And yet, increasingly, both diligence
And length are spurned. Impatience rules our lives,
And this again can lead to negligence.
The broader strokes can often brush away
The filigree that’s there in everything.
******
Even in one’s self, those voices stir
That often can’t be heard above the din.
So new distractions, loud, insistent, drown,
With noise, the softs that rise and die within.
And rage and fear arrive, like tides or storms,
To sweep away all else. We speak and act,
Too often rashly, causing hurt, regret,
Or else retreat. We’re shorn of sense—and sense.
******
The first? Sensation, which is followed by
Perception and what follows after it—
The wisdom, balanced, based on sanity—
That speaks to us when souls are calm within.
This makes us pause to try to understand
And then to speak or act with sense, and not
The haste that comes with unconsidered heat.
And that’s the second “sense” we also need
To use the welter of our senses’ feeds
And all the thoughts and feelings that compete,
In ways not ruled by either fear or rage
Or mere disgust or jaded apathy.
We need the care and courage, born of sight,
That sees confusion, mixed with clarity,
And quietly seeks to sift then each from each.
******
Within this world of pleasure twinned with pain,
With joy and sorrow mixed in turbulence,
So many labor long and wearily,
As others wreak their endless ravages.
We wend our ways through this—and hopefully,
We dwell at times in quiet sanity
That gives us strength—and serves as sustenance.
Our mornings and our evenings come and go.
Our days and nights and seasons cycle through.
And some of us, at times, are blessed with peace—
The grace that comes to us with quietude.
2025 Sep 20 Sat
Berkeley, California