What Makes Us Human?

What makes us human? Is it love? So many of us take it for granted Yet so precious few know how to give it. Is it hope? So many of us fall into despair over tiny things Yet so precious few know how to find strength in it. Is it intelligence? So many of us ooh and ahh over what technology can bring Yet so precious few know how to live in harmony with nature. Has two thousand years of civilization Really brought nothing more than destruction? Has it not also brought realization? Within time, there is change. Change for the better, bringing us back from the fringe. There is always love, To guide us through storms and roads that are rough. There is always hope, To back us while we cope With our troubles, every day that we live Every day that the sun rises from the heaving sea. And though we face a heating Earth, A dimming of our days, With our intelligence we can fix it in a thousand small ways. Human qualities come shining through They almost always do. It is the "always" that we dwell upon and have faith in, So that a new, better age may begin.