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Friday, November 19, 2021

The End of the Rainbow

 


The book of poems that is my life
has an arc - decades of hope and optimism,
faith and trust, love of
the natural world: a rainbow
of possibility for all
of humankind.

We are on the downward curve now,
up and over the arch and sliding
into disaster, climate breakdown,
suffering and death.

How many animal bodies perished
in the soup covering much of
this province?

How many more poems of disaster
will I write before I close my book
for the last time?

I am living to see things
that were never in my dreams.
My poems of gratitude
have turned into
poems of grief.

I am saying farewell to the world
of hope I once knew; saying hello
to times of floods and fire.
Where are the Shambhala Warriors
we were promised, who will lead us
to the other side?
I was raised on rainbow promises,
and now there's not a rainbow in sight.


for earthweal's open link

7 comments:

  1. I know, Sherry. I know. What you're witnessing now is both incomprehensible and devastatingly true. And we are the singers of it. I come to wonder if there is no preserving the Earth we so love if there is still room and time to preserve the singing.

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  2. Hmmm well I think there is a biblical prophecy similar to your poem...people blame nature God the climate etc but the blame lies with us...we did it to ourselves for all the wrong reasons cancelling out the wonderful things we have achieved...

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  3. Try to see hope nearby. Sometimes when the world is filled with desolation, one needs to step back a bit and enjoy the beauty of one's 'backyard' for sanity sake.

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  4. I think all of us nearing the ends of our lives have ridden that arc. The true sadness is that our children never even had a chance to hope.

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  5. This reflects the way I feel. We're living in the dystopian future that the sci-fi writers of the past warned us about.

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  6. There has to be hope, for our childrens sake

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