"Things are far from perfect.
So we may as well dive into the water
and swim with imperfection."
Laurie Wagner, Wild Writing
So we may as well dive into the water
and swim with imperfection."
Laurie Wagner, Wild Writing
Things aren't perfect.
The climate is in crisis.
Wildfires and hurricanes rage.
Wildfires and hurricanes rage.
A huge explosion just rocked Lebanon.
Oppression and corruption are everywhere.
Refugees flee homelands
in search of safety, finding none.
in search of safety, finding none.
Everything has changed.
Masked, we walk wide swathes
around each other,
evading the corona virus
which stalks our days.
Everything has changed.
This isn't the life I was living,
but one that has veered off the rails
and into uneasy and fearful territory.
It is both good and bad
to be old in such times.
Good because, for me,
there is an end in sight.
Bad, because I can remember idealism,
optimism, hope, honour, integrity,
dreams we would change the world,
and it is hard to see how far
we have fallen short.
Everything has changed.
This earth was once a garden,
and then we came.
Things are far from perfect.
But some things are.
Morning still dawns pink with promise.
Clouds and fog still make sweet patterns
on the slopes of Wah'nah'juss.
The white-maned waves roll,
lovely and eternal,
into shore.
My eyes trace the beloved landscape
with such love;
my heart is joy and pain
in the same moment: joy for the beauty,
pain for all that has gone so wrong.
We have so much work to do
and we are tired, tired, tired,
on the verge of becoming
unbelievers.
How do I stay a believer?
Sheer stubbornness.
Child of the sixties,
those once-bright dreams of mine
still shine.
They refuse to die.
* The title is from a line in the poem "Riveted" by Robyn Sarah. The prompt is from Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner, the source of most of my poems these days.
Shared with earthweal's open link.
I can feel your words, the world has changed so much since March. I fear where we are headed down the road of 2020. I am glad you refuse to let your
ReplyDeletedreams die. Keep on shining my friend.
PS I adore your potted plants.
DeleteYes … so true … I think this very much channels - as Michele Obama shared recently - a certain level of depression that we are all feeling in the wake of the pandemic, the abandoned climate activism, race inequities and Trump horrors - that spill into our lives constantly. Perhaps we well feel ourselves beginning to heal by this time next year. We live in hope!
ReplyDeleteI love the repeating of "Everything has changed" it works very wel!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in the 21st century is so hard to do ... with everything changed yet our world still what it is. Praising a broken and failing world I think requires a humility far deeper and perhaps lonelier than before. Yet that is the essence of what Rilke characterized as "the glass that shattered even as it rang." Amen and keep on truckin', sister. - B
ReplyDeleteI was in exactly this mood earlier this morning Sherry--I seem to wake up with it and fight it all day long. This line was almost exactly what I was thinking: "..Good because, for me,/there is an end in sight..." I only wish all the battles we fought did not have to be fought again, on even harder battlefields, for the children of today.
ReplyDeleteI hear you Sherry and I'm not giving up either. There are so many good people doing amazing things, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Stay safe and well xxx
ReplyDeleteSituation less than optimum, Sherry, but I do have hope that we will emerge from this with a better understanding of the fault lines...JIM
ReplyDelete