State of the World

This isn't saying all I want it to, but I am already behind in my poetry production, so I wanted to get back on track.

Sadly, and happily, a true story.

"State of the World"

This morning, before breakfast,

I learned that gays were being tortured in Chechnya,

poor women are now legally denied preventative health care,

and a doctor in America was performing FGM on 7 year olds.

All this inside my head before I even got out of bed.

But then this morning before breakfast,

I sat on the ground in the warm sun with my dog,

and listened to the birds in the trees all around us;

smelt the new growth as spring starts its yearly arrival,

then gazed on the violets and dandelions dotting the

grass in a riot of contrasting colors.

The world around me is a constant source of grief:

tragedies, injustice, cruelty and stupidity

vying for my attention, clamoring for me to do

something to make things better. At times I think

I can take no more. The insanity has gone too far

and all hope is gone.

But then the earth itself reaches out—

A dog’s love and affection given freely;

Birds careless of human strife.

Renewal, fertility, the cycle never ending.

This is why humans have always celebrated

the arrival of spring—a healing so powerful that it

has been a goddess or the dying god returned.

Has there ever been a time when humans did not

rue the state of the world? Did not know, instinctively,

that both nature and humans are

tragic, unjust, cruel and stupid?

Life is uncertain, so the only sane response

is to love and be loved,

and rejoice in the power of renewal.