12 Years In …

July 27 2012

12 years in

to the new millennium.

Another thousand years

and this poem may make sense;

when they look back, again

wonder if anything changed

for the best.

Assuming that man

still lords it over the world,

the calendar, intact

the place

inhabitable.

When we will be

the ancient ones,

their Athenian gods

Hebrew prophets.

Our inscrutable world-view.

Our artefacts, unearthed.

That indecipherable trove

of photographs, and words

we delude ourselves

will last.

How simple life was, back then.

How quaint

their ignorance.

As were we

when the 20th century

was laid to rest.

The worst hundred years,

starting with the war to end all war

then on to the next.

When the word “genocide”

had to be invented,
and bulldozers
buried the dead.

So with giddy relief

we greeted the 21st,

welcomed in

with vigils, and fireworks.

Unbridled optimists

looking brightly ahead.

These lines in the sand

have their usefulness,

as benchmarks, and starting points.

Except it’s a dozen years in

and I don’t see much difference,

a warming planet

hurtling faster and faster

toward the abyss.

But I’m a congenital pessimist.

And perhaps, it’s too soon to say.

So my default state

is taking it day by day.

Anything else

I start feeling overwhelmed.

By the futility

of words.

How long it takes,

how little learned.