A Hopeful Subsequent

We treated law with leniency.
Deferring to expediency.

Hiding responsibility.
Avoiding accountability.

Reducing pain at any cost.
Many principles were tossed.

Or compromised beyond repair.
Beyond hope, beyond despair.

This is how we start a new.
There’s really nothing else to do.

But to remove malignant ghosts.
By vanquishing reluctant hosts.

The hosts are us, the hosts are we.
Our weaker selves . . . society.

The good, the bad, it all be slay.
It’s what will happen anyway.

And in the terror of renewal.
May we find the hidden jewel.

The one to spark the return.
The moving forth with what we’ve learned.

Far from perfect, but surely better.
That is the reason for this letter.

Don’t be lost, don’t be down.
This trouble’s how it comes around.

A forest falls in shocking throes.
While a new one softly grows.

This is the way toward the light.
Ever subsequent the night.