XL--26 So Much Demands My Attention

[WayneS]

So Much Demands My Attention

So much demands my attention
from the Me Too movement
all the way down
to Trump's latest tweets,
from a tax plan
to boost the rich
at the expense of the middle class
to a determinatiion to make health care
inaccessible to the poor,
from Russia's involvement in our election
to North Korea's taunting the world
with nuclear capability,
from global warming
to PTSD
to black lung disease
to cancer, heart disease
hurricanes, earthquakes and starving children.

I want to live in the world where everyone
lived happily in their place,
where the US was always the good guy,
where our leaders always had our best interst in mind,
where disease was for old people
and communities worked with governement
to clean up after a hurricane,
the rich gladly paid their fare share of taxes
and we believed infant starvation,
like polio and smallpox, was a thing of the past.

But that time never existed.
And to want to return to a past
that never was is insanity.
The sane among us face reality
and work to make it better,
not denounce facts,
saying truth doesn't matter.

But that doesn't mean life is misery.
We can still appreciate
the beauty of falling leaves,
walking in the woods,
laughing with children.

At least I hope I can.

[allenitz]

But that time never existed.
And to want to return to a past
that never was is insanity.
The sane among us face reality
and work to make it better,
not denounce facts,
saying truth doesn't matter.

those of us who lived in those days, especially in a small town, know the lie. i'm reminded of a poem i used in my last blog by cszeslaw milosz.

The Past

The past is inaccurate. Whoever lives long enough knows how
much what he had seen with his own eyes becomes overgrown
with rumor, legend, a magnifying or belittling hearsay. "It was
not like that at all" - he would like to exclaim, but will not,




allen

[hawkseye]

Wow -- that first stanza, Wayne, carries the weight of this soggy mess inundating us daily and which I, too, struggle with -- What's happening is too fantastically ridiculous to be viable for a fiction story let alone being what is actually smothering this country I love and I'd hoped would remain a welcome home for my children, grandchildren and so on.

The next stanza -- we once were a country attempting to be fair, real, healing, caring -- Were we fully successful? of course not, but there was a time before greed in government overwhelmed sanity.

I'm too shocked, dumbfounded, gagging on the poison spewing forth that makes no sense whatsoever in this country, in this year of 2017 to rid my gut of a constant ache, my heart of sorrow.

Maybe the worst is that I feel there's so little I can effect on all that is happening. Voting booth? sure, but that's slow and distant and uncertain -- If our nation/government were a business, the board of directors would have fired the CEO, COO, and all the executive staff long ago.

Ah, well --- in small ways,
We can still appreciate
the beauty of falling leaves,
walking in the woods,
laughing with children.

-judy

[Bill_Back]

Good one and you make a good point, things were never as good, or as bad, as we once thought.

Bill