Let us
hope history will not judge the entire
21st century by its poor beginnings, certain world societies and
socio-cultural-religious groups within them paying lip service to the basic
human principles of mutual respect and understanding.
Yes,
there are many good things going on
and good people making them happen, but from where I am writing this sorry
world of ours has not made a good start to the new millennium and badly needs
to get its act together.
Can it be that leaders
from all walks of life need to give less thought to their own egos and more to
the ordinary man, woman, and child in the street to whom, invariably, relatively
few can even begin to relate? It may well be the way life is and history is
made, but that does not make it right or mean things cannot be done differently, hopefully for the better, before it is too late and irreparable damage done to planet and human condition alike.
Maybe, one day…
Meanwhile,
humankind keeps busy creating new mythologies that distant future generations will probably gloss over as metaphor - for what, exactly?
SHADES OF MYTHOLOGY AT THE CLIFFS OF TIME
Dark
angels attacking from the sea,
only to
hover defiantly between a misty
earth and
sky, like bats put in cages,
choice
specimens to admire, touch even,
without fear
(or real appreciation);
we are
safe enough since they can’t fly
in our
faces like the world’s vices,
invite us
to turn a blind eye or join in
the euphoria,
excusing themselves
(and us)
with fine rhetoric, no matter
we prefer
to look eyes closed, innocents
playing fast
asleep
Now, all
quiet. Now, a rush of wings
depriving
even the inner eye of light along
with
harsher cries at ears listening out
for warning
sounds, hints at reassurance
(of
course, what else?) urging we visit
nether regions
of the spirit, view dark angels
with awe
if only for drawing our attention
to some patched-up
failings in personal space
where we can
but watch warily, afraid,
long
since repressed by adopted criteria
for a ‘civilized’
life brooking little empathy
with its
conscience
Marked
for having made bad choices,
(like flying
with bats, safety in numbers?)
in a
frantic rhythm blithely imposed
by Earth
Mother, composed by artists
inspired
by passion’s adventurers,
content
to leave all sense and sensibility
to its
own accountability and Apollo’s
predilection
for shadow play among rocks
and hard
places of a maturity eroded
by time, forever
vying with Omnipresence
for a
place in history, human nature sticking
to its
guns
New
mythologies, last spotted breaking
into old Poseidon’s
lair;
twenty-first century in denial,
affecting to get real about
climate change
even in the face of pleas
from Earth Mother; icecaps, glaciers,
all creatures great and small
carrying the can for its complacency
beyond belief in turning
a blind eye to happenings in a world
where it makes itself a priority second
to none,
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2007; 2013
[Note: An
earlier version of this poem under the title 'No Strategy for Surrender' appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]