The Next Big Thing

March 30 2020

It was always in the air.

And somewhere

in the cramped warrens

where bureaucrats toil,

on crumbling campuses

in cluttered basement labs,

in think tanks

novels

and war games of apocalypse

plans were being made.

All gathering dust

instead of acted on.

Not when everyone was asking for money

for everything else.

Not when “now” rules

and greed runs rampant

and no one thinks past

the next election date.

While the doomsayers and Cassandras

and hectoring catastrophists

kept warning us

but we refused to hear.

Overwhelmed

by the day-to-day.

Reassured

by the trappings of modernity.

And, as always, the bugbear of inertia,

complicit in believing

that things have always been this way

and will surely remain.

Perhaps, in some hypothetical future;

but not today

and let tomorrow take care of itself.

But how brilliant

looking up at a lovely blue sky.

When planes no longer fly.

When the factories have gone dark

and the air is sweet and clear.

When the silence is almost eerie

to unaccustomed ears,

straining to hear

all the sounds we missed.

When life slows,

and we begin to reassess

our short and harried lives.

While in the meantime

the contagion spreads

politicians deflect.

No one saw it coming

I've heard them say;

the tipping points, unspoken threats,

exponential spread

and lack of preparedness.

All the warnings and reports

we blithely ignored,

disaster plans

we couldn't afford.

Who knew?

Why now?

Why us?

And then the next big thing,

because there's always something, isn't there?

When we will also hope for the best

offer thoughts and prayers

blame, regret

condolences.

When I sent this poem out to my first readers, I prefaced it with these words:

I rarely write political poems. And try not to write about current events, since poems that are so grounded in the temporal have no staying power. But I think this is a big enough thing that I'm permitted to indulge. And the message is pretty universal: a version of the grasshopper and ant, to distil it down to its most rudimentary. 

Trump was also very much on my mind (here's where it gets political!):  his disbanding of the pandemic preparedness office; his cutting of funds to the CDC; his grandstanding and bloviating; his deflection and denial and desperate (not to mention continuing) efforts to protect himself while casting blame. Can't get that @#$%#& out of my head!! 

My nephew wrote back that he didn't see it as too political; or at least not at all partisan. Perhaps it doesn't come through strongly in the poem, but I was very much thinking politically. So here's how I responded:

I think this poem is political in the sense that it's a critique of contemporary culture. But more than our political culture in general, it's a critique of the right in particular. Because the flaws I'm sneering at very much belong to the what passes these days for conservatism. I say "passes" because this generation of right wingers (particularly in the US) has no idea what authentic conservatism is. All we get from them are tax breaks for the wealthy; an attitude that regards poverty as a moral failing and all poor people as undeserving; and such nonsensical theology as the "prosperity gospel". It's all about greed and self-enrichment. Not to mention an ignorance of science that at its most odious has become climate change denial. The general values and world view of this sort of person -- and they're the people in charge right now -- is what I'm criticizing.

So the political part is as much a condemnation of our culture as it is of particular political actors. We live in a culture of instant gratification, denial, greed, social climbing, solipsism, self-importance. There is not enough humility, patience, deferred gratification, or restrained consumption. So why weren't we prepared, even though "we" know this was inevitable and had plenty of resources to get ready? Because we're greedy; so don't save for a rainy day, for future generations (same for climate change), for our own future selves! Because we think short-term and hunger for instant gratification. Because we're in denial, and think we're either immune from calamity, or that God or some other deus ex machina will descend from the heavens and save us. Being a pessimist, a catastrophist, and someone who is partial to long-term thinking and deferred gratification (and also a nihilist, which means I have the personal humility of nihilism: not just the meaninglessness of everything, but my own utter insignificance in it!) , perhaps explains why I tend to see more than the bad luck of a zoonotic virus.  

And it's not simply "bad luck", btw. Zoonotic viruses jumping species is more a result of our intrusion on the natural world:  more an inevitability than simple misfortune. I'm thinking here of overpopulation, forcing us ever outward into untouched nature, where we come in contact with virus-laden bats; animal cruelty, as in those "wet markets" of China; and superstition, in the form of traditional Chinese medicine (in this particular case, the vast trade in pangolins)). 

I guess this diatribe is a good example of why prose suits me better than poetry.  It's a relief to be able to say exactly what I think. In poetry, it's all nuance and allusion, ambiguity and misdirection; metaphor instead of definitive statement. Not to mention that in prose I get to use all the words I want! ...But then, that's the challenge of poetry:  self-restraint, the discipline of scarcity, the elegance of brevity.