Love And Wisdom Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Mandela's watching my back, laughing, happiness
suffusing his being, and by a trick of light, staring in-
to the distance with an enigmatic smile on his lips -
he was seventy when he got out of prison - with his
ideals just as intact, incensed and innocent, as they
were when they were first conceived

I'm standing here in my self-fabricated cell, unwilling
to leave my post in the trenches yet without an ideal,
I fantasised about ideals and virtual realities for ages
and fictitious characters enacted my speculations, yet
Mandela trumps them all, he did his exercises every
morning, planted vegetables to augment

The meagre and sparse prison diet, he was Father-
Confessor and Lawyer to all who applied for his help
- and here I am, a little translator in this little work-
station growing old while debating use of terms like
‘Diocese' or ‘Eparchy' as interchangeable - and it's
all so empty, I have no ideal as this world

Is perfect as it is, with my colleagues finding reason
and regulations enough to sustain life - just as long
as grammar rules are applied, reality has meaning,
and there is One up in heaven taking care of every-
thing - as for me, rules are guidelines that should
be ignored when Love and Wisdom require -

Special action; there is no spirit in my mind - which
feels empty and blind; unable to see where the light
leads or whether there's light to begin with: whether
Supra-Consciousness presents a Gestalt - in which
my soul can lose itself; I sigh - life is too boring and
duty leaves no other option….