Not Yet
by Odin odin@aflx.com — Read all 3,869 poems by Odin odin@aflx.com
For many of us, today’s innocence of childhood is but ancient history. Some would argue adults are flagrantly shortsighted in a duty to prepare them for history’s repetition. All we can count on are new costumes and new actors replaying the same characters.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Not Yet
by Odin Roark
Fall
As symbol of change
Keeps coming earlier of late
From green to bright orange
To smoldering gray
The spirit’s defoliation is quick
Napalm unnecessary
The new century firebombing
Showcasing Syria or Pakistan
Insidious and stealth
Needs little to ignite
But children don’t know that
Not yet
It’s easy to think
The world was born old
Time doesn’t know any better
It’s always been old
Like a pawn shop of layered history
Prized conquests periodically
Are taken down from a shelf
Dusted off
Principal and interest paid
Taken ‘round the block
Promptly displayed
Upon another shelf
Gathers dust
Until
Time to replay
Pawn today
To forestall tomorrow
Repeating the ritual
Making possible the next
Piece of history
Repeating itself
Old getting older
So it goes
But children don’t know that
Not yet
Once in a while
Fall comes and goes
As history meant it
Nature tries to tell us
The life of a leaf
Turns from summer green
To streaks of yellow and red
Flame orange slipping in naturally
Trying to remind us
The biding of time
The patience of process
The natural evolution of time
Asks little
But we ignore such wisdom
Even children don’t know that
Not yet
What they do know
Is that leaves fall to the ground
Daddy and mommy rake them up
Like so many dead things
So much burning-in-waiting
Piled high for another memory
Lit to flame
Inviting children
To run around the fire
Their yells and screams of joy
And innocence
Betrayed by demonic faces forming
Mirrored in the fire
But the children don’t see that
Not yet
Like life’s fire
The world ages
Many ashes burn
To a different kind of pawn-dust
Still
Ultimately
The layered lessons
Whether on the chosen battlefield
Or atop that banjo in the pawn shop
Like chickens one can’t tell apart
Everything comes home to roost
Sometimes coating time-remembered shelves
Sometimes remaining just identity’s mulch
Nurturing tomorrow’s momentary reprieve
Awaiting the next harvest
History’s ignorance repeating itself
Tomorrow
And probably…
The next day
But the children don’t know that
Not yet
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Perhaps to isolate, to insulate,
To nurture without exposure to PG anything,
Tucking chicks beneath momma's impenetrable wings.
It is the cursed who feel no remorse,
Throwing their children to the hungry wolves.
And the obvious reason the wolves come round again. M.True
Ron
budd
Rx
Like Edward's response too :o)
and they get a glimpse of what lies beyond the moment
will they be too old, too tired, too apathetic
to nudge the course of history?
We don't know that.