If (a poem)

This Poem is dedicated to all people everywhere who work for a more just, peaceful, and compassionate world. It is about persistence in the cause of seemingly forlorn hopes, seemingly quixotic quests, and seemly lost causes. Stay true! Don’t give up the ship! Carry on!

And if the world isn’t round
Mere noise at the root
Instead of celestial sound
Or if the root is split
The harp comes all unstrung
The maiden’s heart is cold and never won
Achilles has no faulty heel
Through which he can be undone.
And Brunhilde’s fire isn’t only in a ring
The hero, laughing, rides boldly in
But no watching minstrel later sings.
The warrior bravely hacks and hacks
But, alas, the secret knowledge lacks
So Hydra head after Hydra head
Against already long odds he stacks…

Then I’ll ride with those warriors still
And sail into the west until…
And seek the sound that spawned the root
Without a squire to lace my boots,
I’ll still love her till my heart grows still
And ride through all those fiery rings
And lay about Achilles’ foot
(Never in it for the loot)
And perish in the offering
Of unrequited heroism
By hydra heads all hemmed in
And I’ll make sure before I ride
Into the awful rising tides
To leave a song for bards to sing
As my final offering.