Make a Difference!
by D. R. James

–a villanelle for commencement speakers everywhere!

Tonight, fatigue’s grim flower unfurls,
but Gandhi, gunned down, had this to say:
Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Oh? Even when giving swine my pearls,
my every action seems absurd, and all day–
and tonight–fatigue’s grim flower unfurls?

Even though, in my disgust, I’d hurl
the grenades myself, I should, anyway,
be the change I wish to see in the world?

What about how resolve just sways and swirls?
What about colleagues who counter, “We’ll pray”?
Especially then fatigue’s grim flower unfurls,

work is relentless, and all effort whirls.
But I’m to believe, on these feet of clay,
Be the change you wish to see in the world?

Thanks to the Bottom Line that makes lives curl
I’m ambushed by a twist to the old cliché:
tonight, fatigue’s grim flower’s unfurled
by no change I’d wished to see in the world.



 

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