Shadow of Ignorance

As Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” purports, it is hard at times to hold people accountable when in actuality they choose to not know any better.

Shadow of Ignorance
                    by Odin Roark

How pervasive
This innocence
Turned weapon
Casting as it does
But silhouettes of its reality

The shadow of man
So often seen
So clandestine its verity
Moving over landscapes
Brightly lit with fear

Politics
Religion
Relationships
Business

On it goes
This outline of purpose
Hiding stealthily behind
Its backlit reality

Blind remains the perceiver
Trusting that which can’t be seen
Except by penumbra’s
Epiphanous delusion

Rare integrity
Steps from behind the eclipse
Revealing their true certitude
Risking that many perceivers
Will see such action specious

Leeriness of convictions
Dictates reason as shield
Aware mendacious agendas
Prevail as the given today

Thus argue the conscious

To excuse ourselves with ignorance
Is derelict of duty
Hastening the speed of covert influence
Rapidly paving persuasive highways
Where opportunity shows little honesty
Continuing to deceive our sense of safety
With misleading caution signs
Many speed through just before
Plunging over the cliff