What Have We Done? Poem by Ogolla Enock

Things that we prey on with straying feet
And consume with an intemperate appetite,
Rob us of place and peace;
Reducing us much lower than apes

Initially, we pursued excellence and great ideals
Every man was clothed in innocence,
True to the creed and agreed to sense.
Those were the old days before false intelligence

Then came the sweeping tides of compromise
Ushering a time when every man and nation
betrayed his flag and conscience. All was
good until we compromised and experienced otherwise.

A lot has since changed, both far and near
Former ideals and right ideas lost their power.
All that's left are scars and masks. A life of rot veneered
with a thin sheet of glories-empty glories!

The problem is neither the vice nor the compromise
But that resorting to regress and making peace with the mess.
We've been in hell far too long, we've made it home.
O my! What have we done to ourselves?
What have we done to ourselves?

Ogolla Enock,6th May 2022.
A Crisis of Ages
We are free men with freedom of choice.
What we lack isn't the freedom of choice
but the wisdom of choice—the ability to discern
right from wrong on absolute terms and comprehend
both the immediate and the future cost of every choice.

The problem isn't a scarcity of wisdom,
but is that in constantly violating our conscience
by choosing wrong because it offers convenience,
we've trespassed far too long
we think it's queer to do the right thing.

But how did we get here?
Destiny can only be traced from its origin.
When we dethroned God and made gods of our own,
Not only did we falter from the right path
but also fell from God's hand.

It's one thing to falter off the straight way
but it's a terrible thing to fall from God's hand.
Out of God's hands into the pans of hell.
Thus we've been in hell far too long
we've made it home.

Ogolla Enock - 30th March 2023