Photos of Feeling

Future historians will be able to see,
How advanced or backward our technology,
But without certain truth they will forever debate,
The thoughts of humanity in our current state,
So rather than fill up this chest with things,
I place in here photos of feelings,
Of strangers and of me and friends,
So over time our mind-set can transcend.

A smiling face that is gazing at a child,
The love and beauty so beguiled
An angry man with a swastika tattoo,
With eyes of hatred that he isn’t like you,
A group of men kneeling down to pray,
Two very tall buildings collapsing away,
Laughing and drinking with friends at a bar,
Two bodies laid out next to a smashed up car.

Starving children dying in their mother’s embrace,
Fat oil executive holding a money-stuffed briefcase,
Country leaders smirking into television screens,
A shot of a service station with high priced gasoline,
A hospital ward, patients lying on the floor,
Teenage soldiers marching off to war,
A man on the street begging for a helping hand,
The same man staring at his wasted farmland.

The future will judge us by not what we achieved,
But by how we our brothers and sisters received,
Society is evaluated how the less fortunate are treated,
Our greed and contempt have our consciences defeated,
We have love for ourselves, our children, and power,
To rise in the ranks, the weaker victims we devour,
The final photo in the chest is of me and explains,
I am bowing my head, with rolling tears of shame.