Our Prospect Poem by Dennis Ryan

August 18,2011; completed Wednesday morning, May 9,2012

"We need to separate ourselves from ourselves
to be ourselves. All that pain and power:
that isn't us. All that busyness... "
- William Bronk, "Who's There", from The Mild Day

"Under despotism, Herodotus adds, they [Athenians] were cowardly, 'as men working
for a master, but when they were freed each man was zealous to achieve for himself. ' "
- I.F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates

"So shall the knowledge of wisdom be to your soul.If you have found it,
There is a prospect and your hope will not be cut off."
- Proverbs 24: 14

Driven into hiding, destroyed, desperate, powerless yet free,
we have become our job titles, our offices, our sought-after prestige.
We have moved far away from ourselves to become nothing.
We lack true character, inner conviction."Ethos anthropou daimon",
Heraclitus warns."Character is fate." So saying, we privilege pomp,
ceremony, the graduation walk down the aisle. We are unduly impressed
by ourselves and others, are almostincapable of authentic expression.
We lack true compassion and courage.Our cowardices and betrayals
are legion, legendary, never-ending. We are no longer, are suspended
in mid-air.Our hope cut off? Is this our prospect?Under the present
despotism, we are equally cowardly and grasping for achievement.