FROM MY SERIE POEMES philosophiques

THE ME WITHIN AND WITHOUT

I am a turtle I withdraw into myself
My shell sometimes impenetrable
Sometimes soft like a sweet baby’s bottom.

As the time and occasion demands,
I can turn inward and outward
With the equal facility, sheer abandon,
A chameleon is changing its hues.

Every time I glance without
I see the impairment, the defects manifold
Of this imperiled world that I live in.

Whenever I glimpse within
I see my shortcomings, flaws
With my strengths relegated
To the lowly back burner.

I’d instead prefer to look within me
As I cannot refurbish the blemishes
Of the braying external reality.

But of myself, I can try
And transform myself
To achieve albeit with difficulties
The transcending heights
The pinnacle planes
The heady, virtigoan levels
Of the human condition.

And from those Olympian heights
Fight ignorance, selfishness, greed and want.
And all the other infirmities of humankind.
In real-time as well as space.
It is said physician heal thyself.