‘World Planners’ – a poem for COP 26

The world planners gather.
The young men mixed red blood with blue water
And windy sands covered shattered helmets.

The old men confer with figures
And refashion their empires.
They seek a solution; they have it,
And they know it not.

Once when the world was younger
Some nineteen hundred years,
A quiet man walked the Judean hills
And along Galilee’s shore;

Then men left their nets.
And he spoke to the people
On a mountain with loaves and fishes,
And he entered the city on a burro
And they hailed him emperor—
And they nailed him to a cross.
“The Kingdom of God is among you.”
They worshiped his teaching
But were afraid to live it.

The world planners gather,
They seek a solution; they have it,
And they know it not.

Arvel Steece, “World Planners,” Christian Century, March 20, 1946.

SOURCE: https://archive.org/details/sermononmount0000jord/page/94/mode/2up