Reputations Poem by Morgan Michaels

Should we cherish them?
Permit constraint?
Guard them at all cost?
Observe their guidelines
so as to fly a spotless one
for God's and neighbor's sake?

Or loathe them as cruel masters-
giving ground only so far
as needed? Waiting a bit
and if the slip
overflows the mold,
chucking it, moving on?

Maybe it depends
on what we've presently
got versus what,
free of them, we hope for still.
What it will cost from where we're at,
values shifting year to year.

Good ones are preferred, certainly,
yet certainly disposable
when shinier baubles bob along.
Are they then the greatest good
or no? Think. Here, dear
Balthasar, you may be wrong.

But think. Think carefully
before you act. Reputations
may revive, of course,
as politicians swear-
Yet lost, they can be diffy
to repair and take back.