As They've Always Been - Oct 9 2023

 

As They’ve Always Been

Oct 9 2023

Things are as they’ve always been

until they aren’t.

Yet we're repeatedly caught by surprise,

as if things could go on forever,

time has no direction,

and death

inevitable as it is

remains a distant hypothetical

until very near the end.

So no need to change

prepare

rethink;

inertia rules

denial works,

and defaulting to complacency

seems our natural state.

As if we were special

exempt

somehow spared.

So as I read the daily paper

   —  reclining

in my usual chair,

the dog at my feet

snoring contentedly  —

and read about an earthquake

climate change

some faraway war,

I imagine another accustomed routine

on an unremarkable morning

somewhere else,

when out of a clear blue sky

a bomb fell.

Because it's always somewhere else

someone else

somehow different than us.

No warning, no intuition,

just the roof falling

walls imploding

choking dust,

before a crushing concussion of air

and lights out.

Forever

right then and there.

But sometimes, it's just a nagging pain

that seems to linger

then worsens

and spreads.

There's always something, you sigh,

as you knew in your heart

and said many times to yourself,

feeling put upon

by fate.

But why not then, instead of now?

How unthinkable

that it would start like this

on a normal day

no different than the rest.

Perhaps slow, instead of sudden,

but still the end

of something or other.

Because I'm such a congenital pessimist, I tend more to catastrophism than denial. But still, I never expect the axe to fall this second, and there’s always the sense I’ll have some feeling of control.

This poem began with reading about another Mid-East war; in this case, the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel from over the Gaza border. Bombs randomly lobbed on cities; apartments reduced to rubble: instant death on an unremarkable morning out of a clear blue sky. Substitute Ukraine and Russian cruise missiles: same thing.

But my thoughts about complacency and our illusion of permanence aren't new: based on my what I know of history and archeology; the recent pandemic; and the threat of climate change to our notion of inevitable progress as well as our very civilization. Hard as it is to imagine, and as surely as Ozymandias' statue lies in ruins, the great cities of the world — with all their comforts, shining towers, and monumental works — will some day be dust. Perhaps even less than dust: lost to history, like the sophisticated cities of ancient Central America, only recently discovered under remote tracts of dense impassable jungle.