We have gone too far . . .

From Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, pg. 427

We have gone too far; we do not know how to stop; impetus
Is all we have. And we share it with the pushed Inert.

We are clever, -- we are as clever as monkeys; and some of us
Have intellect, which is our danger, for we lack intelligence
And have forgotten instinct.

Progress -- progress is the dirtiest word in the language--who ever told us --
And made us believe it - - that to take a step forward was necessarily, was always
A good idea? In this unlighted cave, one step forward
That step can be the down-step into the Abyss.
But we, we have no sense of direction; impetus
Is all we have; we do not proceed, we only
Roll down the mountain,
Like disbalanced boulders, crushing before us many
Delicate springing things, whose plan it was to grow.

Clever, we are, and inventive, -- but not creative;
For, to create, one must decide -- the cells must decide -- what form,
What colour, what sex, how many petals, five, or more than five,
Or less than five.

But we, we decide nothing: the bland Opportunity
Presents itself, and we embrace it, -- we are so grateful
When something happens which is not directly War;
For we think -- although of course, now we very seldom
Clearly think--
That the other side of War is Peace.

We have no sense; we only roll downhill. Peace
Is the temporary beautiful ignorance that War
Somewhere progresses.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
***********************

I wanted to put the whole poem out there for context, but the lines I wish I'd written are:

". . . we only
Roll down the mountain,
Like disbalanced boulders, crushing before us many
Delicate springing things, whose plan it was to grow."

I especially like the phrase: "Delicate springing thing things, whose plan it was to grow." I think of that phrase each spring as I walk through the woods looking for mushrooms, wildflowers, and warblers.

And of course, with the war raging on and on in Iraq, I often think of her last line:

". . . . Peace
Is the temporary beautiful ignorance that war
Somewhere progresses."

When I am out in the woods at Forest Park watching warblers flitting from tree to tree, or when I am looking out from the levee at Banner Marsh at hundreds of Pelicans soaring in and out of the marsh, I can almost forget about the atrocities going on throughout the world, both to people and to the animals trying to live in their turbulent and changing habitats.