No One Is Allowed at All

We try to be good by the lights
Of our times and local contexts,
Those mores of communities
Into which we were born or chose
To pledge or perhaps constructed.
Other communities, not those,
Not ours, will judge ours, will judge us.
No one has to applaud this, but

This is what will happen, so long
As there are humans belonging
To communities of humans
Judging human communities.
Some judgments are alliances,
Pasts recruited to new causes,
Across the boundaries of time.
Most caricature and forget.

In this sleepy, desert suburb
Of the American southwest,
You might not guess, this warm morning,
Among the delivery vans,
Yard and pest-control services,
Retirees out walking their dogs,
That this is the evil elsewhere
Of evils elsewhere, good and bad.