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A World of Eagles

In perfect worlds, there are some rules: You do not step on flowers.
And insects do not bite you, and rainbows stay for hours.
Every tree bears fruit that can never, ever spoil,
So anyone can live a life without a bit of toil.

They are all musing poets, and singing bards of mirth,
And all these perfect worlds of course are never, ever Earth.
Why can’t we work to make of this a better place to live?
Quite frankly, it’s because it would take more than we can give.

Would you surrender everything, to have a bit of peace?
We know it doesn’t work that way. We’ll always need police.
This is a world of eagles, their prey the peaceful dove,
Whose serene flight of beauty gets a nightmare from above.

We know that to have peace we must always prepare for war,
For only equal foes respect the meaning of a door.
“My door is always open” makes your door a welcome mat.
And someone will come to take your treasure, and that’s that.

We do not need the weapons that will make our fences strong,
But the watchfulness of angels who will punish doing wrong.
We’d have a safer world if we knew we must do right,
But what kind of people would there be who do it out of fright?

I want a world where one does right simply because it feels so good.
A world where evil withers from the light just as it should.
I do not think I’ll find it in the paper as I read,
But it is in my dreams when my imagination’s freed.

NicknamedBob . . . . . . . . . . . . June 13, 2004