Justice

It is in our DNA

to dream things,

to build some version

of what we dream.

But we have moved so far

from where we started,

standing alone until someone else

stood up, someone on whose shoulders

we could stand to see further,

and see that we were

standing on the shoulders

of those who stood

on the shoulders of those

who stood—and so on and back

through all those compounded dreams,

the serial dreams of who we were

before we were ourselves,

before there were dreams

of complicated things

like wealth and justice,

back when we aspired

to a day without toil,

without torment or terror,

until all those hopes and wishes

became a dream of justice,

a very new thing compared

to how long we have been dreaming

of lesser things.

There is still

another DNA driven thing

that sees a vision of ourselves

resting when the building’s done,

resting in the thing we’ve built,

that sees ourselves

relaxing into the dream

that became the thing we built,

like some retiree

on a white sand beach

who is thrilled to spend a day

without dreaming.

Mind and boldness mix and blend

in the dream we aspire to build,

wishing along the way

to be done with this building,

to be living in the dream complete;

and wishing along the way

to seize the dream of justice,

the thing that can’t be built,

cannot be seized

or even dreamed alone,

the thing that sometimes seems,

but never is,

unbuildable.

And there we wish to rest,

relax into the thing that can’t be built

alone, will always be unfinished.

It follows then that in the matter

of justice, it is the journey

that makes the difference,

that becomes our measure.

Then,

like she who is no longer distressed by struggle,

we must be satisfied to dream,

and to build, together.