the well down deep

there's a war and riots and power black

to blacken black the hearts of all.

"more then?", quiz the screaming tongue

of peace and joy and hope of love;

turbid sounds spill o'er now chapped lips.

comes the prize ablaze

though black be speckled blood in red:

placards high 'neath concreted soles

with beards and hair strung for an avant-garde,

all unknowing  the Known once known

but hence the dead, the vaulted God.

our scene rests by the well down deep

wherein through which a tree-scarred lad

a pebble loosed to its thirsting floor

while weeping toward the nimbused sky.

*In moments of despondency we may perhaps look around and think that we should be much happier if we gave up trying to be good, if we could enjoy all the vices of the world around us.  But that is only a fantasy. The desire for goodness is really a much more robust desire than any alleged desire for evil.  And it is the desire for goodness which we must cherish.  Sometimes we can be too much occupied with seeming good, even with being good in the sense of conforming our outward behavior to external standards of correctness, and as a result ignore our own real needs.  We must be content to grow slowly towards goodness, taking, if need be, a long time to convalesce.  Most of us, maybe, will still be barely at the beginning of our recovery even when we die.  But that is better than killings ourselves pretending to be healthy.

We have trivilized ourselves, fobbing ourselves off with trinkets when we wanted a kingdom.

*Simon Tugwell