Our Better Angel Selves We Must Then Find
Poem by Thomas Harrison Humphreys
Our Better Angel Selves We Must Then Find by Thomas Harrison Humphreys exposes humanity’s tragic cycle—rejecting the transformative figure who teaches without dogma, wages peace like war, and dies repeatedly for gifting us thought. A lament for our self-sabotaging enlightenment.
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When HE walked about, with purpose HE walked, Rallied the trodden, their own trod HE balked, Marching to war, but without war HE marched, Teaching the unlearned whose learning was parched. When HE spoke to us, with purpose HE spoke, Taught norm-breaking, but no thing to be broke Preaching conquest; but no conquering preached Fiercely breaching with fierceness never breached. HE seemed the answer, and can be one still In a world that is still scrambling that hill. HE has come to us many times you see Call HIM what you will Alas, always we place HIM ‘pon that rood HIS thoughts thus to kill. We have prescribed to HIM the hemlock drink And have crucified HIM, even upside-down, We have wronged HIM for helping us to think And have slain HIM on balconies downtown. Then always, when HE is gone, We lift HIS teachings on high, But, without the star to lead HIS words go awry and nigh. We forget HE had a dream We dream of peace through unrest We embrace unrest and raze But our razing does not peace wrest. Then, we must peer into ourselves for aught Looking to who we have been … and have not, Our better-angel selves we must then find Seeing ‘ere long what HE saw for all mankind.
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Thomas Harrison Humphreys, with a BS from the University of Lynchburg, is a history teacher in a small village who loves to talk to his students of literature. Thomas has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Poetry Quarterly, Writers and Readers Magazine, Copperfield Review Quarterly, Written Tales and Mystic Publishers.
Originally Published in the WestWard Quarterly