Sitting at a dinner table . . .

Sitting at a dinner table

With seven old people,

The youngest among us

In her mid-sixties.

Eating and drinking

And talking along;

The men dominant

And pompous

And name-dropping

As each in turn

Mounts his hobbyhorse

And gives a little lecture

(myself included).

And the topic of written

Words comes up

And one of the women

Wisely observes

That the tablets of Moses

Gave the Jews of Genesis

A way to behave—

Got them back on a path

To basic decency

If not to a promised land.

And I respect that: writing

Out a few, clear-cut

Prohibitions wasn’t

A bad idea;

And when you toss in

A little Sumerian

Eye-for-an-eye

And tooth-for-a-tooth,

You’ve got a rough version

Of justice, as well as some

Good rules.

And so,

We Western humans began

Our stumble through history,

Our endless and uncertain

Struggle against the worst

In us and the worst

Among us—those

Who delight in power

And, in turn, recruit

Those who take

Pleasure in harming others.

By now, the wine’s not

Working anymore

And I’m silently reflecting

On how I’ve lived through

The end of one century

Into the next, and still

It’s a dark and violent world.