The 5 Ws - Feb 26 2022

 

The 5 Ws

Feb 26 2022

We are waiting for news.

Hoping for the best

and fearing  . . .    .

But why always at 3 am

in bleak bleary darkness?

And what, exactly, is “bated breath”?

And how long can you hold

before the hunger for air 

becomes irresistible?

At least when we were uncertain

there was hope.

Now I know

that whoever scoffs at false hope

hasn't needed it;

isn't all hope real?

You will ask

where do we go from here?

As if knowing empowers us,

when all it really does

is end the wait.

And then, of course, there will be more news ahead.

So we listen, watch

talk among ourselves.

Because it's always something, isn't it?

One thing after another

until we become inured to events,

be they good, bad

or indifferent.

The history we are living through,

and the history to come.

Because we may think we’re done with the past

but the past isn’t done with us.

The 5 Ws: who, what, when, where, and why. (I even managed to shoehorn in a “how”!) The essentials of straight reporting and good journalism in an age rife with mis- and dis-information.

Too much news these days. Trump's assault on democracy, truth, and rationality, not to mention decorum and precedent. The climate emergency. An unending pandemic. And, as I write this, the criminal invasion of Ukraine by Putin's Russia.

He imagines himself a modern Peter the Great. He has never relinquished his deluded view and distorted version of the history of Soviet Russia. The parallels with the beginning of WW I as well as the mad ambitions and grievances of Adolf Hitler are unavoidable. The bottomless greed of powerful men — the kleptocrats, the autocrats surrounded by “yes” men, and the grown-up bullies — has always been with us.

So while there is the history being made, and the history that will be made, there is also the history that's never done with us: the past, despite our illusions of modernity and enlightenment.

I hadn't remembered where or when I heard it, but the quote that concludes the poem stuck with me. Now, googling it, I learn it came from — of all places!— the movie Magnolia. So as much as I'd like, I can't in good faith claim it.