16 February 2017

#16 - All Saints' Day

"We know that everything is for the best
in this, the best of all possible worlds.
The Lord's perfect creation has unfurled ‒
evil exists to put us to the test."

Voltaire just laughs ‒ "My friend, you surely jest!
The fractured earth, the boiling seas that hurled
their rage upon this European pearl
disprove the 'Optimism' you've expressed."

Through Lisbon's broken bones and tumbling spires ‒
a devastation none can understand ‒
through bedlam, flood and all-consuming fires,
Herr Leibniz strolls with Pangloss, hand in hand,
to seek the views of those still left alive
on All Saints' Day in seventeen fifty-five.

RJT


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