This Is Not the Time

This is not the time to make things pretty,  even though you live in a village full of happy people, close to an old growth forest, with miles of sandy beaches stretching to forever. One could keep on writing happy poems about beauty, if one didn't watch the news, about the poles melting, the ocean and the atmosphere warming too fast, too fast, sea levels rising, rivers flooding, extreme weather events, and the wildfires of summer heading our way. And if one didn't feel the frustration of knowing for 50 years that this would happen and yet, and still, they would rather spend billions on rockets and weapons of war than do the only thing that will save us: curb emissions. They talk about creating some sort of filter in the sky. They would spend money on that, yet say there's no money to do what we can do on earth to stop the rise: plant trees, stop cutting trees, make corporations operate sustainably, clean up their own messes, and pay their share of taxes. If they didn't subsidize industries that have billions in profits and try to convince us that this boosts the economy when what it boosts is greed at the top of the food chain and inflation and desperation at the bottom.

Sigh. 

This is not the time to make things pretty. But I could write - have written - a kazillion poems about this, and we could, most of us, agree. But until leaders LEAD, and legislate real change, all we can do  is our small part, which isn't enough, not nearly enough. And buy some fans for summer.

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The lead-in line "This is not the time to make things pretty" is taken from Maya Stein's poem of the same title.  I took a different direction from her poem.