Poem: "The Things We Change"

This poem came from the September 7-8 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired and sponsored by the_vulture, based on a prompt about genetic engineering.  I was pleased to see someone else looking at the complexities of this issue, rather than seeing it as wholly beneficial or harmful, so that aspect comes through in this poem.

The things we change
are things that we can see
and things we cannot see.

Pollen dusts the wind like fool's gold,
flying from field to field
indifferent to property lines.

Sometimes the other crops it touches are warped.
Sometimes the butterflies it touches are killed.
These are things that were spoken before they occurred.

Sometimes we see it coming.
Sometimes we don't.
Sometimes we don't care.

Mosquitoes that carry diseases
are adapted for that ancient duty.
We don't know what changing it might do.

We only know that death comes on diaphanous wings,
whining its way through the black veil of jungle night,
unless we lift our hands to stop it.

Temptation beckons us to bite the apple,
but we have no knowledge until we swallow.
Our quest for immortality could kill us yet.

The fool who does not learn remains a fool.
The hero who leaps before looking becomes a corpse.
How can we know when to hold back, when to move ahead?

All we can do is the best we can do.
Choose the path of least possible harm, and step
Carefully, carefully, always testing for traps.

What we can see and what we cannot see
Will always be there to trip us as we chase
The things we change.


* * *
Footnote: By the way, the phrase "death comes on diaphanous wings" apparently sold the poem.  I'm really tickled when people tell me things like this.