Poem: "Manifest Concern"

[ysabetwordsmith]

Name: ysabetwordsmith
Title: "Manifest Concern"
Colors: Sunlight #12 Manifest
Supplies and Styles: None.
Word Count: 103
Rating: G
Warnings: No standard warnings apply.

The following poem belongs to my series Path of the Paladins. This is spiritual fantasy about the followers of a deposed goddess. Themes include faith, perseverence, recovery from trauma, nonsexual love, and making the world a better place.


"Manifest Concern"


Caprina has seen Syvera
running with the horses,
although she did not know
what she really saw.

Einar has seen Barzay
working in a forge,
heard the steady beat
of the hammer in the god's hand.

Matin has seen Talaton
playing the part of a fool
in a crowded marketplace
with no one the wiser.

Shahana has seen Gailah
quell a riot with one word,
her lightest touch bringing peace --
but that was decades ago.

Ari has seen none of this,
young to the work of a paladin,
knowing the gods by reputation
and not yet by their manifest concern.

* * *

Notes:

The title comes from this quote:
We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves.
-- Peter Singer

Comments

[bookblather]

I like the... the theme of knowing and not-knowing here. It's almost as if Ari, knowing only reputation, is better off in faith than the others, who might know by sight but don't know by faith.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad you found this so thought-provoking.