when the time comes war will too

[Dave]

peace feels permanent, natural, the air moves
us along the path easily like a soft hand
pressing ever so slightly on our backs, move
but gently, say hello and smile, look up
the sky has opened itself to the living.

we must admit, though, war is coming.
a dog is barking, has been barking,
we did not listen, merely, raised our voices,
we allowed ourselves to raise our voices
and incite the dog. we closed the sky.

no one knows why, least of all ourselves.
we know everything but ourselves,
that too is in the nature of things.
a girl stands at a street corner and sings,
her voice carries profound beauty - no meanng -
only a sense of being a girl who sings. the
street moves beyond her voice, beyond care.

men draw lines, in sand, all ideas are sand.
other men set their feet against those lines
and wait til war comes as it must. 
 

[Mark]

Sad and powerful writing. It does seem that the march to war in Eastern Europe is inevitable.
 

[indar]

Well this is the second time I am writing a response to this poem--lost the first. I remarked that it's too bad the poem is already outdated---it has begun. Again.

Love the images of the open and closed sky, the dog barking.  So much about denial as an almost pathological problem has already been written it's now up to poets to write poems like this to bring it into focus at times like this. I keep thinking lately of all kinds of syndromes in human behavior that can be generalized to whole populations. But that's another poem.

I agree with Mark, sad, powerful write.

 

[Tracy Mitchell]

Dave --

I am captivated by the closing stanza.  Ideas as sand – haven’t heard that before.  Very fresh, compelling,  and effective. 

The poem describes a laconic inevitability of our collective drift toward destruction.  Not because we are, per se, malicious, or even because we are stupid, which we are, but simply because we are who we are – a specie who talks over the sound of the barking dog, who instead listens to a beautiful but vacuous voice. We know our histories and ideologies and religions, but not ourselves.  We separate ourselves by ideas like sand, and then wait, powerless to avoid our own fate, the seemingly causeless and inevitable war. 

This is a heavily depressing take, but hard to argue against.  

T

[Dave]

How true and terrible that events have overtaken us so swiftly and senslessly

[Colm Roe]

Prescient, pertinent and powerful; like a flower in the barrel of an M16.

[TrevorConway]

Well-put and well-written in general, Dave. Hard to critique something that nails it so well.

Well done,

Trev

[Eric Ashford]

Looking back to those earlier days before the actual invasion of Ukraine I recall how normally the people went about their lives, most not believing that Russia would unleash such savagery upon them. Stoic and perhaps not wanting to believe that all this could happen to them. Good write!

[Dave]

Thanks Eric - yes how often have people looked back to a time not so long before and wondered at their complacent acceptance of the good things of life.

Dave

[Marcomando]

Very good - rings true, especially at the current time.
‘All ideas are sand’ is absolutely spot on and perfect!