ALMOST TOUCHING OMNIPOTENCE

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Men who believe themselves invincible,
certain of their own intelligence,
driven by a creed
that makes them feel divine.
Led by a will
of undefined faith,
they raise their voices
above everyone else’s,
until they convince themselves
they possess unique abilities...
almost touching omnipotence.

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Their proud,
carefree, contemptuous eyes
judge you...
and you,
intimidated by such fervor,
give in to your fears.
You turn away,
feeling yourself bend...
you no longer believe in yourself
for having failed to respond.
You hid yourself in embarrassment,
denying who you were.
You could find no reason,
so you stepped aside,
forced to avoid
their mockery.
In living,
you paid what you believed you owed,
searching for meaning
in your own existence.
You were unable
to hold yourself with dignity and integrity,
yielding to the will of others.
You fell, unworthy,
into the abyss of their pettiness,
despised by the poverty of their spirit.

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Merciless beings,
with shameless arrogance,
lower the gaze
of the humble and the submissive,
their legs trembling beneath them.
Quick to make the soul bow,
to bend it toward the chest,
they wound a dignity
imprisoned by false judgments.
Contemptible arrogance
imposes its own voice:
a humiliating premise
that subdues,
that diminishes.
The awareness
of one’s own inferiority
is devastating.
Beyond all of this,
what are we?

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We are equal in dignity, at least in words,
yet we lose ourselves
within our own selfishness.
What truly are the qualities
that set us apart
when we presume
to make a moral judgment?

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To know another person
in the truth of who they are,
to give voice
to a living desire
that belongs to them.
A life worth building begins here:
to listen to another’s voice
is to open one’s own soul
to the thought of another.
Author's Note
I found this poem among the stacks of paper I was about to throw away. It had yellowed with time, but its meaning was still alive after so many years spent in the attic.
While reading it, I saw my ambitions passing through the years, the things I expected to happen… and yet I realized that, in some ways, nothing had really changed. And still, there was something familiar.
When do we allow ourselves to blindly believe someone else's judgment, letting it become stronger than our own voice?
I did not want to rewrite it. I wanted to read it again.
Some poems do not change with time. We are the ones who change. And sometimes, years later, we finally understand what they were trying to tell us.
— Antonio Castellaneta

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