Warnings

A mother finishes reading her gifted daughter’s class-essay…

"...Like the glow of star-dispelling lights rising,
saturating air from 5th Ave
to Trump Towers,
to the Bronx,
to the tops of bridges

brazen audacity shouts.

"Hurt and pain guised as power and success,
a purulent throb of discharge,
woulda, coulda, shoulda,
now, like always, but decorative wounds,
cover-ups flung high over and through,
settling seasonally in Pennsylvania 2nd homes,

as innocent animals in fields gaze upon the humans.

"So, it goes.

"Rising,
spreading,
oozing dream-blisters,
festering from forever frictions.
Id and ego, smooth and calloused,
reduced to screams and laughter.

"Have and have not antecedents
surviving now as virus,
knowing not of antidote,
immunity prevention
long ago ignored for addiction."

“This is well written for your young age, Dana, and…”

The mother pauses, goes to her daughter’s bookshelf,

and pulls down a volume.

"Your thinking reminds me of a lesson in this book

that used words and illustrations...
see here the picture,
barnyard-animal-looking humans,
all dressed in black-tie finery
debating what to do about their fears.  And this

was George Orwell back in 1945 reflecting on events

leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917"

"A bit prophetic, I guess.”

"Yes.  Well, you remember when you read this,

Mr. Orwell saw the problem long ago and set the stage
for contemporary writers to re-address Man’s weakness,

often in a somewhat different way, but with the same warning."

"So, the animals are concerned about...a warning?"

"Yes.  History remains determined to repeat itself."

She caresses her daughter's cheek.
"Some things take a long time to learn,

especially when fear dominates the thinking."

As she rose from the daughter’s bed, “We are a peculiar race. 

We create the same lesson over and over…

until we learn it.”

“But we do learn the lesson eventually.”

The mother’s smiled.  There’s always hope.

"Sleep well, daughter."