Give Up on the World?

I cannot give up on the world

While there are books unread

Their important words, to me, unsaid

Poignant voices of truth singing somewhere

Away from whom, I, deaf and unaware,

Cradle my uninformed opinions

I may be in pain and out of my mind with disdain

Cringing at the deeply-rooted, evil seed

The crawling malignancy around and within

Cold and calloused greed

But, really, can I wisely give up on the world? 

It may not be advisedly sane until I have used the one last effort

Of my sometimes rational brain

(Not in some melodramatic faint

Resigning sigh or fist-pounding complaint)

But in seeking, seeking, seeking

My sisters, brothers, mothers, kin 

No! Until then

I cannot give up on the world

(Spoken by the author who once thought herself the world’s greatest failure.)