The Art of Making Possible — Nancy Scheibner
Credit to the blogger Middle School Poetry 180
— with much gratitude from yours truly, because I couldn't find my own copy of this poem. The last four lines of this poem were written on the living room wall of my old flat, but I am sure I also blogged this quote before. The author's first name and the exact spelling of their last name was almost entirely out of reach of my google-kongfu even when I searched in my own bloody blogposts. Rest assured I am going to save this more permanently. The last five lines of this poem have inspired my yearning to always do meaningful work. I hope this poem inspires you in a similar way. Enjoy.
My entrance into the world of so-calledgr “social problems”
Must be with quiet laughter, or not at all.
The hollow men of anger and bitterness
The bountiful ladies of righteous degradation
All must be left to a bygone age.
And the purpose of history is to provide a receptacle
For all those myths and oddments
Which oddly we have acquired
And from which we would become unburdened
To create a newer world
To translate the future into the past.
We have no need of false revolutions
In a world where categories tend to tyrannize our minds
And hang our wills up on narrow pegs.
It is well at every given moment to seek the limits in our lives.
And once those limits are understood
To understand that limitations no longer exist.
Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free
Not to save the world in a glorious crusade
Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain
But to practice with all the skill of our being
The art of making possible.
