We survived the Cold War,
though a few times
obliteration murmured
and defeated the Soviet Union
by outspending the big, bad, bear.
Yet ongoing threats
to American security
changed the nation,
gave the oligarchs
opportunity
to consolidate wealth,
move industry offshore
so we no longer made things,
moved the people off the land
into unwelcoming cities,
subsistence taken for granted,
as long as trucks keep delivering
food, other necessities,
power keeps flowing
to sustain cliff dwellers
dependent on electronics.
The bond of community
is perilously frayed,
except for dwindling
good citizens
who want to help neighbors.
We eat in isolation rooms
diverted by tv, the internet,
less active than our fathers,
less willing to face the fascists
overturning our society,
vandals eroding the constitution,
thugs violating the law,
crumbling infrastructure
eroding travel, country
and our non staturous leaders
can not turn the tide
of incipient disaster.
Traditionally,
doctors knew best
and for a while
we obeyed their instructions,
except for the stubborn,
the dimmer resisters.
Then insurance companies
inserted themselves
into health treatment,
determining how much they paid
medical practitioners,
severing direct relations
to payer and payee,
restricting how much
insurance paid,
thus changing a profession
once independent
now servants of actuarial tables.
I’m not as bad
as Vladimir Putin,
Kim Jong Un,
many others.
What I’ve done wrong
cannot compare
to men of great evil,
yet my wrongdoing
weighs heavier on me
than the great crimes
inflicted on the innocent
by human-rights abusers.
I was walking on a mountain side
brooding about my failures,
dissatisfaction
the primary motivation
for a new direction,
answers elusive,
spurring frustration,
oblivious
to a beautiful Spring day,
when I came upon
a wild blackberry bush
bursting with large berries.
I picked and picked,
ate and ate
until sated,
went back to my cabin
nothing resolved,
but filled with great feelings
for Nature’s bounty.
One day it’s warm
and the sparrows sing:
“It’s Spring. It’s Spring.”
The next day it’s cold
and the sparrows cry:
“What happened to Spring?”
In early January
the trees were budding
though winter was young.
So many of us
bred on concrete streets
do not notice
seasonal disorders,
or we’d surely know
the climate is a changing.
Glimpses is an unpublished poetry collection that takes brief looks at some of the problems that disturb us in this conflicted world: ‘Coincidence', 'Disease', 'Criminals', 'Excursion', 'Confusion’.