Enormous Effects Poem by Greg Gaul

Unseen forces like real native spirits
in red clay cliffs who show painted faces.
Singing songs echoed in faint voices:
tattered tribes, shamed souls, sacred spaces.
Hidden hurts of primitive peoples
have effects that only time erases.

Unseen forces from privileged powers
that move across ages in a raging rush.
Conquistadors, crusaders who dominate
amass riches from peasants they'd crush.
Kingdoms and cathedrals built in God's name
that alas would even make Versailles blush.

Unseen forces that effect the very planet:
invisible laws, natural order.
They rest in stillness and unfelt for eons
then quake all humanity, every border.
Unknown elements seething so lowly
beneath the surface impacts even broader.

Unseen forces heat polar ice caps slowly
slipping silently into the world's sea.
If one were to pick each single flower
then denude the last three trillionth tree,
the enormity of causes brought then to bare
never stops spring from bursting eventually.

Unseen forces for wrongful genocide
history does tell of ethnic cleansing.
Many million Indians moved or died,
one race is not above another.
Evil acts can't be set aside
will we ever learn there is no other?

Unseen forces show The Grand Inquisitor
believes man only lives in ignorance.
Decried by the disturbing visitor -
poses "bread and circus", not impermanence.
Christianity spares man from doubters -
their "soft kiss" disallows free will's advance.

Unseen forces traipse through thickets of thought
among rotting minds who have ruled.
Madness that denies thinking hard fought
the deeds they did and fools they fooled.
If power is the thing some have sought
sadly they've been poorly schooled.

Unseen forces of hardened awareness
can be trusted to turn their affinity
over time to an enlightened world view.
Therein lies the true fate of divinity.
Deep down within humankind will rise up,
setting minds to reach for equanimity.

Unseen forces exist away from sight
look outside beyond your own bubble.
When the hatred dwells dark within us
intolerance is the worst trouble.
Released in its own deadly time
it can render our earth to rubble.

Unseen forces arrive very unexpected
so humanity can create wondrous things -
the inner search for true empathy.
Celebrate what change of seasons brings
surprise emerges often through legend.
We will rise to our own human spring!