“It
pains me to say this, today's humans only look human, but act like animals.
They judge before they understand - they conclude before they realize - they
proclaim before they recognize. They talk about harmony yet in their psyche
they are more broken and conflicted than a broken glass. As a result, harmony
has become yet another pompous ideology for them to take pride in, without
sacrificing anything on their part.”
Some years
end with eulogies of joyful regret, some years
End with
eulogies of mere, bitter expedience.
Today, on
this last day of a most testing year, I made myself a nest
Out of plushy
cushions and straddling blankets.
I observed
the gentle, insistent dance of snowflakes descending
Like curtains
of pale promise, through a toowide window
Fogged with the
coldest vapor making unexpected shapes.
This year
ends with mere, bitter expedience, and we can see
How the
funeral ceremony for 2018
Actually perspires,
dripping saddened sweat through
Overwhelmed,
overworked pores, because
Those who
knew the year well are not push n’ shove,
Taking reluctant,
halfhearted turns at the podium, searching deep recesses
For nice
things to say, honestly kind words that could cherish a legacy,
Something pleasant
and hopeful to bury the deadness of lost months:
With some
measure of grace and aplomb. The crowd
at this year’s funeral
Is as sparse
as high points during a tsunami, as pitiful present
As endangered
penguins huddled in frosted, desperate scrums,
And the
speakers continue their litany of measured meanings,
And the
eulogies build to a keynote crescendo as unintelligible
As a fortune
teller paid to make up reassuring, poll-tested drivel,
And the meager
crowd, festooned in penguin suited angst, starts to only
Anticipate the
escapist orgy of the pending reception, to be held
In a
fortified, way way underground bunker helpfully distant
From the
wantonly destructive whims
Of Mama Nature
in Full Resistance, as if
Holding a
party for the hottest year on record (or close)
Would make
sense on the surface, where
An unseeable
rising sea or forgotten forest fire
Might eagerly predate, and then
Completely devastate.
Completely devastate.
There will
be none of that, no snatching of fake fun
From this
maybe Endtime glee, as the orchestra plays on,
Playing the
playlist from the post-iceberg Titanic,
Penguin-suited
mirthful mourners rearranging tables and chairs,
To preserve
their familiar cliques of ideologies both failed and active,
Making sure
that the gold-plated elevator back up to the top
Only has
room for the top .1 percent
Of committed
survivor-strivers and sooncome despots.
Yet, suddenly,
the broad bunker, with near perfect acoustics,
Begins to churn, through the walls of standing steel,
And a long-lasted,
hyper-cooling, aggressive breeze captures the space,
And each and
every head-scratching, half-drunken participant
Seeks solace
in the hope of leaving self-selected groupings
And constricted,
painstaking minglings behind, suddenly, most unpredictably,
Forming a
geometrically perfect circle that discards
Silly, sectarian secrecies and twisted, tribalistic tirades,
Safe knowing only
Silly, sectarian secrecies and twisted, tribalistic tirades,
Safe knowing only
That Evolution
is the only solution.
I take a
pause, staring through a toowide window
Now completely
obscured by winter’s damp deluge,
And come to
recognize that the mystery of 2019
Could fast
become a puzzle easily solved,
Its pieces
forming solid, stable, ready-linked continents without much effort,
If only the
Best of us would, or could, see the inclusive, expansive panorama
Instead of
the intimate, narrow portrait.
