We lose our capacity

to remember the first time

when as a toddler, the groovy

cherub child with sparkling eyes

and father’s nose, when we became

the pain in the arse,

the ache in the side of our parents head

and the cause of arguments,

we forget the joy

of the first time we asked why?

We rebel, we glory in poking

a hole in the absolute,

we saturate our speech with this new found word

and not realising the implication

it will have on our lives,

that those in command,

those who unblinkingly

serve their master with the dogged zeal

of a lunatic,

they never asked, they blindly followed,

they never questioned, they became blind,

they never queried, they never had a shred

of momentum to feel anything but certainty

that Gods and Monsters, parents,

politicians, Doctors, lawyers,

commanders, dinner ladies

could be anything

but right;

question,

why have forgotten how to enquire,

how have we neglected to learn

as we grow older,

the power of

why?

 

Ian D. Hall 2017