..."The future flower lies folded in the bud,
Its beauty, color, fragrance, and graceful form
carefully shrouded in that tiny cell till
time and circumstance, and sun and shower,
expand the embryo blossom- and it bursts
its narrow cerements, lifts it’s blushing head,
rejoicing in the light and dew of heaven.
But if the cankerworm lies coiled around
the heart of the bud, the summer sun and dew
visit in vain the seared and blighted flower"...
.
It’s getting worse … these
problems besetting us, these
mountains confronting us, a world
of challenges fraught with all distressing
apprehensions corrupting intent…
Americans become
their best (and worst) by choice,
regardless of the growing reluctance to
denounce inept ideas threaded with dubiety
.
We are a country of
Far rights and far lefts in which
both sides (relentlessly) color their
beliefs – notwithstanding the cry for unity;
one side stands and applauds, the other side
sits and stares, irredeemably div---------ided,
an increasingly agenda-driven tohubohu
fueled with unbelievable hauteur,
sneering down long noses,
hoping someday for self-glorification;
government becoming more like gooey starch in
Grandma’s pudding, than an effectively flowing stream…
.
At times I tingle
with apprehension
at the notion of being me…
(encapsulated in a dying body,
inhabited by an everlasting spirit,
incarcerated in a society pregnant with
lunacy, hatred, and myopic self-centeredness)
…a kind of alphabet sculptor scratching SOS in
the sand just before another wave crashes

richard lloyd cederberg
      richardlloydcederberg.com