Eden calls (I've been thinking about evil...I)

I think Eden calls like a lost love whose voice
We still recall.
Her words are a song, comforting and melodic and sweeter than time.
Sometimes she whispers, sometimes she screams
And we don’t know where she calls from.
But we search frantically, each day more than the next
It’s obvious in our peace protests
The causes we take up with passion, purpose and self righteous piety
Demanding, “how can humanity turn its back
On this or that/ they or them/ she or he?”

Something in our hearts tells us that what we see is wrong…
And we become angry and indignant, so we fight
To bring about what we believe is right, to restore a small piece of the world
to how it should be.

It might take the face of “operation this” or “benefit concert for them”, or “project such and such”
It’s instruments: picket signs, goodwill trucks, ready hands, strong voices

Ready to suppress the might of the “enemies”: today the greedy, tomorrow the rich, perhaps the powerful or materialistic, the oppressors.

But who ever defined or showed us what “should” is? Would we know the restorative place if happened upon it through all our efforts?
What tells us to fight?
It’s so commonplace that we never ask the question, pre-supposing that it’s justified.
On the basis of what?

We don’t even realize we are yearning to be reunited with Eden, our love.

We have forgotten her face
But we remember her beauty.