Thursday, April 21, 2022

Considering the Counsel of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Forget the blunders and absurdities of yesterday,
Emerson advises; tomorrow is a new day for doing better.
His counsel is not suited to everyone.
Putin, I think, goes to bed enraged at being thwarted 
and awakes inflamed by renewed vengeance.
Hitler must have faced each new day buoyed with pride
at the cleansing of jews from Aryan Germany.
I can see Mladic at the mirror twirling his mustache with 
            satisfaction
the day after he commanded a Muslim genocide.
I think the Idaho logger who kills wolves because, he says,
"It's so much fun to shoot 'em,"
wakes up still chuckling at yesterday's fun.
And did the crowds who witnessed lynchings in the American 
                South
arise the next morning repulsed by racial hatred?
Thanks, Emerson, for the advice to consider each day
an opportunity to do better than we did yesterday
but I fear it's based on a false assumption:
that we are trying to do good in the first place.

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