Today and Maybe Tomorrow and Everything Between
After Kevin Nance’s Doomscroll
The world is crashing even the alligator quivers in its burrow a lone egret chokes in the yellowed marsh somewhere a child questions the sky and the ant stores deep into its season always someone’s finger itchy with hate shattering the stained glass of our illusions our shopping carts rudderless abandoned classes spewing survival instead of history as we face walls their shadowed reality clouds find it hard to spark our daily pleasure sweet grass lost beneath bare feet instead eyes shift and startle at random sounds a woman wilding in the park the driver feared quick to anger
In such tides of uncertainty what is left to those who carry sandbags in the fume of storms who sow kindness in the gardens of strangers who wield pens as lanterns through the dark who stand before tanks in moral stillness nothing but to rise like a green blade through concrete an unruly cinder from ash the siren of song in dying air nothing but to reach a hand to be the one who answers hope
14 thoughts on "Today and Maybe Tomorrow and Everything Between"
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Wow, Sylvia! What I like about this poem is that your examples are not things we hear about on the news, but they are what is all around us. I’d be hard pressed to pick out a favorite line or two – I like so many so much.
What a great description of our modern angst! I will hold to
“hope” of last resort
Wonderful. So many great, vivid and true lines in here. This one — “always someone’s finger itchy with hate” — unfortunately, rings so very true.
This is gorgeous. It reads/feels like a tapestry. I love it that Kevin’s poem inspired the poem! We are going deep at LexPoMo.
I love it too!
Your pen is a lantern in my darkness. I want to be one who answers 💚
I’m honored, Sylvia! Thanks for writing a poem that’s a lot more hopeful than mine. Maybe hope is a dangerous thing but sometimes it’s still all we have, and at least it’s something.
This is fabulous and the images and word sounds are really wonderful too
love rise like a green blade through concrete
Just beautiful Sylvia. So many rich lines and the spacing keeps me off balance and falling into that lushness over and over.
Loved shattering the stain glass of our illusions- so many great lines!
but to rise/ like a green blade through concrete
^^Favorite line, and I admire how you broke it, too!
This brought tears to my eyes, in a good way–after all of the powerful images of the horrors of this world, your list of what we can do despite that tide of ugliness–wonderful!
These lines, simply beautiful!