In the Next Life, Canto I, stanzas 20-23

I find myself drawn further into this thing every day. I intended to use this forum just to present a few stanzas from In the Next Life now and then. Somehow I have gotten myself started not only posting every day, but also including two or three introductory paragraphs. Two days in a row does not establish much of a pattern, but if I make it three consecutive days I am afraid I might raise expectations among readers. I would ask the readers of this blog for their current expectations, but I have no idea of their number. Also, I have probably put people off by my treatment of one of the two readers who have clicked the Post Comment button and retyped nonsense words until a legible one was presented. Rest assured, my dear friends, that I am not poised to pounce on the next person who offers a comment. I wanted to express my frustration with the process of copying my work into hypertext markup language, my ignorance of the internet, and having been born too early for the computer age; and I knew Jeff would not mind a little gentle ribbing as long as I let him have the last word. I promise I shall not target other members of our little community in a like manner.

With that one paragraph (not enough to set a precedent, I hope) out of the way, here is today's bit. The Facebook crowd revised the first and fourth of these stanzas:

Suppose a group of intellectuals
are critically massed one afternoon.
They fear, as many do, the trend that pulls
toward nuclear disaster fairly soon.

They meet at a symposium, let’s say,
and hear respected scientists recite
the terrible predictions of the day
that fallout turns into an endless night.

They fear not on humanity’s behalf.
Some few will live to start the race anew.
And those who don’t have had their chance to laugh.
No creature lives forever in this zoo.

Don’t give them credit less than they deserve
for we to them have not the greatest worth.
Their mission is no less than to conserve
what’s left of civilization on this earth.

© 2010 Louis A. Merrimac

Give them credit: They haven’t done anything wrong yet, have they? The problem is that the line ending in ‘conserve’ has to precede the seed, so to speak.