Promised Destiny

I have heard the cries of children in the night,

Incalculable the measure of their pain,

Reliving the abuse, eyes wide in fright

To bear the stinging lash of strap and cane;

Childhood never known nor child-delight,

The wounds so deep, the psyche slow to heal,

Mistrust of peers, inordinately of men,

The beatings that continue til they feel

Like a wounded doe in a beast-filled den.

Across their souls the darkening shadows steal.

I have suffered none of this but heard

The violence that falls on childhood's ears,

The anger and the careful hurt-filled word,

And in my room wept soundlessly the tears

That flow when love is lost and like a bird

I flew far from that maternal nest

To music and a burgeoning city life

And left behind religion to find some rest

Across the seas where only the inner strife

Confronted me in my spirit's agelong quest.

Now I know that every soul is me,

All 'otherness' a fabric of the mind.

Delight is our promised destiny

Though good and evil dwell in all mankind,

When from division we at last break free.