De Rerum Natura Poem by David Mitchell

I cast my mind's eye to the mountaintop
And what do I see?
I see, beneath me, the world
Of quotidian existence,
Of labour and of rest,
Of man's humanity and inhumanity,
A world inhabited by people whose prime object is their several self,
Who seldom if ever look inward,
Let alone outward,
A world of cruel wrath;
But in this world I see also the good,
The kind, the friendly,
Those who truly love mankind,
Although they beweep our outcast state,
The benevolent and the selfless.

Above me stretches the heaven,
abode of the Divine, the Ineffable,
half-forgotten by much of His Creation.

I fall to my knees and silently pray.

(Sunday,4th December,2005.)