Day: July 8, 2020

I lay in bed
It is early
Outside it is gray
And very cool
No wind or waves
Just a stillness
 
I hear a few birds
I can see dew
And spider webs
I see new growth
And winter burn
 
I think about condition
Man’s efforts and
Try to get my mind
To grasp it all
 
I think of men
In recent times:
   Frederick Douglass
   Abraham Lincoln
They knew the problems
The difficult solutions
Efforts of positivity
Results of failure
 
I think of rust, drought,
Floods, earthquakes,
Hurricanes and volcanoes
Then mold, rot, rodent and
Insect infestations
Questionable infrastructure
Incompetence
Nepotism and bribery
Failing leaders
 
A tall pine tree
Next to a sapling
Both destined to fall
 
The richness of security
Laid alongside of
The need for food,
Shelter and water

Mothers caring for children
Dying of malnutrition
Distances traveled for
Potable water
Day after day until
Death relieves the obligation
Leaving it for someone new
While those in luxury
Go about in their splendor
Grumbling about inconvenience
Never thinking about
The South China Sea, Hong Kong
Tehran, Pyongyang, Moscow,
Damascus, and Beijing
 
Poets wrote;
   Walt Whitman
   Carl Sandburg
   Ralph Waldo Emerson
Problems and solutions
Isolation and involvement
So many people
So many muses
As many answers
But then the power
 
Who has the power?
The corrupt media
A stacked bureaucracy

I think
Germ warfare
Intellectual property
A grinning countenance
As handshakes are made
Evil intentions
Overlooked by the imprudent
 
The slow chinking away
Of virtue and responsibility
 
A mist comes up from the lake
The chipmunks are scampering
Chattering; looking for food
A bird cries out
There is no answer
Life resumes as if
It had stopped
It hadn’t
 
Wise men have answers
Spell them out in books
They are given no exposure
Journalism is dead
 
Our media carries water
For the agenda drivers
Christians are slaughtered
Turkey attempts genocide
On the Armenians again
History repeated
We hear nothing

Muslims neck-chained
By the thousands in
Mainland China
Arabs implicit in their
Attacks on Israel
 
The World Health Organization
Working for China
The travesty of the United Nations
 
Great minds are silent
Or not heard
 
We pray without acting
Are quick to blame
 
Answers are apparent
But power is difficult to give up
 
We linger with hope
For resolution
 
Stanski
July 8, 2020 ^