In Fading Dream

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Can a poem ease
the ache in my heart,
as so many animals and people
are suffering and dying?

Can a poem give hope
at the end of the newscast from hell,
when it feels like
a habitable future on earth
is being lost?

Can a poem lead us forward
into an uncertain tomorrow,
or give comfort to ease
all the dying, the dying, the dying,
thepainthepainthepain?

Yet I can't stop writing words
to chart this journey
that has left the rails of all reason
and spun off into Impossible,
in faint hope that enough minds
will become illuminated,
awakened, inspired
for Change.

The leaders chase money
as whales full of plastic
wash up on beaches,
polar bears who are just bones in skin
collapse on melted landscapes,
sled dogs pull sleighs on water instead of ice,
and fossil-fuel-mad billionaires
fill their pockets
with all our tomorrows.

All we have left is today
and whatever words
of hope or comfort
- or despair -
we can find to say,
in fading dream
that somehow humankind
will quickly
find its way.


Sigh.