The Children of the Optimist and the Pessimist

There are those who hope and those who wish, and then there are those who know
How the world really works, and where all our hopes go.
But even those who say they know cannot have all the facts.
The feelings that confine us will slowly bring them back.

And that's when all the castles in the sky will fall.
That's when we'll hold our hands against the gaping maw.
That's when all the troubles of our petty lives will cease.
That's when we'll all break free, and find eternal peace.

It will not be the ones who hope, nor the ones who know,
Who guide us through the darking sky to where the feelings go.
It won't be those who saw the light, or those who cry in the dark.
It'll be the ones who look on love and fail to find a spark.

They're the ones who wander through the world so dark and grim,
They're the ones who look on love and find it's future dim,
They're the ones who feel the pain and cast it aside as well,
They're the ones who walk the world but never, ever fell.

They look down into that gulf where rest the certain souls;
The ones who laughed and sang aloud "steady as she goes!"
The ones who cried so far and long, no comfort could derive,
The ones who think they know it all, or at least think they're alive.

The others look down on them, then slowly turned away,
Certainty is not for them, who search the endless ways,
For them there is no tunnel dark, nor light at tunnel's end,
All they see are fleeting skies and veils with crashing rends.

They are the ones not understood by those who expect much.
Comprehension finds them not who look through despair's touch.
Neither are they fathomed by those who would know all,
For all that touches them is a wish to finally, fatally, fall.

Jealous are they of certainty, who wander day and night!
For even if their end is pain, it might still end in light.
They know it does no good to wish, for wishes must all die,
But they know that without wishes, only clouds will fill the sky.

Hope has fled before their eyes and despair they cast aside,
They face what's left with uncertainty as their only fleeting guide.
What will happen will just happen, and yes, it may be good,
But should the harsh times rise around, then they'll be understood.

Fighters then shall rise up, for passivity will pass,
But its time will come again, for both have times to last.
And so it is with those who live the lives of two,
Who know that they do not know all but don't know what to do.

We'll wander fast and wander far, and search for the place to leap
A cliff's edge, a roadside curb, a doorway where someone weeps.
Will it end there? We cannot know. The road might still go on,
But should it wind around our hearts, just know that we have gone.