CIVILISATION

It is difficult to be exact about the day,
the exact day when civilisation ended,
the day we stopped being members
of communities that respected, even cared
about each other and the precious world.
It was not the day that awful, bossy woman*
said "there is no such thing as society,
only selfish bastards looking after number one."
It was not then.
Nor was it the day John Lennon died
and so much hope perished
on that New York sidewalk with him.
Was it one day or perhaps a gradual thing?
Did the rich slowly abandon responsibility?
the young stop talking to the old?
did we each become only
the sum of what we own?
Did we abandon the old gods
to worship science and technology?
At the start we did not know the thing
we were losing was a great thing.
In the end we will understand that we
lost everything, the day civilisation
came to an end.

*the "bossy woman" in question is Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister and one of the architechts of the mess the world economy is in.