Where There Is No Vision Poem by Joe Fraccalvieri

Do we not keep time with faithful clocks…
Moor our ships, by the shore, beside dry wooden docks?
When we sleep, do we dream below the same yellow stars
Are we here, on a planet, between Venus and Mars?

Do we not shake from our fears and jump with surprise
Cry the same tears-- find love in our hearts
and believe with our eyes?
Do we not hear with our ears and deceive with our lies--
feel the warmth of the earth when the sun starts to rise?

Do we not breathe the same air in which the sparrow has sung
And if we dare speak our mind,
don't we speak the same tongue?

And when we sit in our chair,
and stare from a distance at this world in despair--
is it so hard to admit, that maybe we care...
That we bear the same burden...
That we share the same prayer

We live in a world where the people perish…
Where there's no light to whitewash the Lie
Where each thing that we see,
and all the things that we cherish,
reach up-- yet eventually die

And there are men such as me who rose from the dust
Some I believe, others deceive…
So, I suppose, there are those you can't trust

Some, I recall, were there from the Fall--
remaining mired in anger and gore
Before greatness, they grovel--
with their fear, they grapple
Like infants, they cling and they crawl

They will fight to explore what the righteous ignore
Still-- they run to the one who brings nothing but war

They cringe at creation… Peace, they appall
They flinch at the thought when the flesh is no more
while our children have fun as they shop at the mall

They continue to lie-- to be sly-- to be bold-- to get by…
Believing such actions could possibly stall
the Imminent End… Closing in, on us all

Some will choose flight from the ones who use might
who haven't yet found how to fly
And all they can do, for the rest of their lives,
is to shout from below, wanting to try
or to jump from the roof-tops, waving goodbye

Wrong or right, irreverent or just, in awe as they stare upon high
They look into the night-- the darkness, they relish--
for power, they lust… Life, they defy, passes them by
The truth, they embellish, brandish, and thrust
knowing not why-- it turns slowly to rust

But I watch the heavens, for hours and hours--
day after day-- I pray and I curse and I cry
before this blue earth of ours becomes but a blemish--
the price that we pay-- until it's all wiped away
with a tear
from the sight
of God's eye