A Couple of Poems

Cosmoplitanism

To be free from local, provincial or national bias; a citizen of the world.

When you are young,

it’s hard to understand the vastness

of the world, let alone

the universe.

But as you grow,

so do your fears

and hopes.

Some grow faster than others

But all grow up and out

They branch across oceans,

telling stories of faraway lands,

as if they know what it is like.

I do not pretend to know the truths of others,

I know only my own.

prejudice

is a small seed

planted at birth.

It grows with your fears.

It begins small, innocent.

You are afraid of simple things;

the dark, monsters,

it manifests as you

grow older, it changes with you

fear grows into anxiety

‘I don’t understand them,

so they must be bad’.

What we oft misinterpret

Is the difference between

can’t and don’t

can’t implies impossibility

where don’t suggests refusal.