Who Bears Responsibility

By Andrew R. Duckworth

Who bears responsibility,
For you and me?
Who comforts with false security?
How will we ever survive
Without big brother in our life
Making sure we stay the course?
Making sure we’re ‘safe’?
Making sure things don’t get worse?
Oh, how we contemplate…
Who bears responsibility?
Surely, not you or me
For our own risks and choices.
Why should that be?

Ahh, gentle child of only two,
Perhaps no one has spoken to you
Of how the world operates.
For every time we step outside,
In ourselves we must confide
For the risks we choose to take.
Lightning may bolt and strike us dead,
A burst may occur within our head,
Our ticking clock may strike its last,
We may trip down the stairs instead.
Illness travels here and there
And ends up almost everywhere.
It’s curious that when there’s money to make
That authority suddenly starts to care.
But, make no mistake,
The risks that we choose to take
Are our own to bear.

But dangers lurk within the dark
And light cannot illuminate
Who the threat may be today
Or how the danger operates.

Why do you call your brother “threat”
When, if at the close of day,
They received the risk you get,
Yet chose to take another way?
Risk will always come knocking,
But if your door you keep locking,
You’ll be shut out from the day
And darkness will be here to stay.
So, who bears responsibility
For you and me?
It is I for me,
And you for thee,
That bears responsibility
For ONLY ourselves
As we navigate reality.