Who Is It We Are?

I sometimes remember faintly
the taste of what
it means to be alive.

So what is it to live,
to be alive?
What is it to be human?
What is it we do
with our lives
to give them
meaning?

Is it to die in Auschwitz
bare foot,
in a mid-winter’s blizzard?
Is it to kill in those
very same camps?

How many have given
what is best?
Mother Teresa,
Michelangelo,
Bach,
or Einstein.

How many have taken
what is best?
Joseph Stalin,
Erzebet Bathory,
Heinrich Himmler,
or Tomás de Torquemada.

Who do we think we are;
if after rising from our king sized bed,
and looking into the mirror,
we do not see all those faces
and hear the echoes
of their voices coming back at us?

Who do we think we are;
if we do not see the very worst
and the very best
of humanity within each of us
and with that vision –
choose?

We are, each of us, the salvation
and the damnation of our world,
our species
and our children’s children.

So what is it we choose
this day, this moment,
with each breath we take?
Is it the hang nail
that nags us
or is it something more
magnificent and
far more glorious?