We Are Shaped.

We are shaped.

We are shaped by our own history.

The sum of a myriad influences

over every hour of our lives,

we are what chance has made us.

So, too, our decisions:

these, too, are likewise shaped, decided.

Burdened with the worst of histories,

I should prove the worst of villains,

as does the worst of villains prove

when burdened with a history so dire.

We claim a morality,

values that are our own, self-retained.

But we are much helped, and so discreetly,

we do not see our helplessness

and, in our ignorance, we condemn,

distance ourselves from those less blessed.

All the universe is innocent,

there not to be found anywhere

one atom of malevolence.

The badness, the malice, the spite,

is all ours and, therefore, all mine.

Am I not the model of my fellows,

typical of my kind?

Each and every evil that there is,

or has ever been or could ever be,

is here, has hatched here and here uncoiled,

here awaits its chance for further mischief.

To make such an admission

is no less than to assume,

to take upon oneself,

by grace of reason,

the sins of the world.

Here is a cross,

a true cross,

worthy of acknowledgement.