Into Darkness Poem by Jim Yerman

As I once again watched hate emerge from a person the other day
this thought occurred to me…
What if the world was suddenly plunged into darkness?
A darkness so thick no-one could see.

And what if this obsidian darkness into which we had been thrust…
was the kind of darkness into which…our eyes could not adjust?

How would we interact…where would we even start…
as we groped inside this darkness…unable to tell each other apart?

I wonder would we be more accepting and compassionate if this darkness did arrive?
Would we be more generous…more giving…
if we knew we needed each other to survive?

I wonder in this darkness…what kind of world would our world would be?
I wonder if hate and prejudice would be as prevalent…for people we cannot see?

I wonder if in this darkness love for one another we would reclaim…
I wonder if in this darkness we'd treat everyone the same…

As I once again watched hate emerge from a person the other day
a second thought occurred to me…
That we are plunging ourselves into darkness…with all this hate we're setting free.

A hate that is already clouding our world…with anger and animosity.
A hate that already…for some people…makes it impossible to see.

And it saddens me how our hate is slowly plunging our world into eternal night…
And I pray that we can change this…while we're still able to see the light.