The Peaceable Kingdom

Was there ever such a fabled place?
Might there ever arise a time and a place
when and where the lion lies down with the
lamb? It is a vision of everlasting hope
that has humbled and haunted humankind
ever since the primitive mind sparked 
thought that led imagination to arise that
survival's instinct to destroy anything or
anyone shielding the grasp from obtaining
advantage might be tempered by an
emerging conscience dictating toward
amicability beyond instinct and tribe.
The human heart reacts in swift sympathy
to the perceived plight of a vulnerable
and helpless young animal. Shrinking in
fear and distaste at the red in tooth and
claw reality nature imbues her creatures 
with. Yet it remains the human creature
whose fearsome passions of violent rage
shrink the mind and threaten the peace.
From pre-historical times to the Biblical era
to the present, the dreaded loathsomeness
of fratricide, matricide, patricide and deicide
have haunted the poetic legendary tales of
human moral depravity. We fear the savagery
of wild, untamed beasts of the forest and
jungle, when all the while humans steeped
in the civility of the modern world are
the creatures whose predation on one 
another present the true horror of existence.