J P Marmaro | + Follow Poet |
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Unbridled Change

These days of changing values can be hard:
What once was just, today's considered wrong.
Some things encouraged now at one time jarred,
Abandoned now are values once held long. 

Unquestioned rules and customs are eschewed,
And standards jettisoned yet not replaced.
What once was fixed has now become unglued,
While words which all revered are now erased.

But while injustices should be redressed,
Iconoclasm can exceed all sense—
When free expression finds itself suppressed,
Then tolerance becomes a sad pretense.

For though things change, some things stay valid still: 
Light is not dark, nor yet is good now ill.


This sonnet has received an Honorable Mention in the Society of Classical Poets 8th Annual Poetry Competition.

Copyright © J P Marmaro | Year Posted 2019

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Craig Cornish Date: 12/21/2019 3:33:00 PM Indeed! This could be melded as a perfect collaboration with my quatrain posted 6/13/17 named "Temporarily Contemporary" Login to Reply J P Marmaro Date: 12/21/2019 7:57:00 PM I agree with your poem: ardent reformers all too often throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. I think of the famous "serenity prayer" (you know, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage (or "ability") to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference)-- I always had a problem with that prayer: just because someone has the courage or ability to change something, it does NOT mean that it SHOULD be changed! Thanks and take care!