A poem for we desolate of vision

How embarrassing to admit that we have no plan.

But the fact is we are desolate of vision.

But what can we expect when thousands

Of our oldest and wisest are dying by attrition around the clock

Only to be replaced by countless new souls

Who need to be welcomed, fed

And loved and taught to speak

One of 7.000 languages (not counting the languages of nature).

The landfill on the horizon dominates the threshold to infinity.

After that, just sand and more real estate

Being surveyed for solar farms and cities of the future

That will be addicted to the milk of the sun.

But the Pope is breathing on his own again.

And remember when Gaza was just Gaza

In the atlas of our self-loathing?

And remember when a bird was just a bird

Instead of an endangered half-mythic thing?

Oh, and can anyone tell me what our children are dreaming?

Who of us remember our own dreams,

Dreams of what we might secretly want or need to remember!

Or does our fading memory signify

That our memories are receding for reasons of their own?

And can we even use any of those words that win the puzzles

That keep us busy while a madman is renaming

The gulfs and rivers and countries of the world?

And using war for demolition?

And planes are landing upside down

And whether we survive and crawl out

Onto the tarmac to live another day

Depends on some random person's prayer

Who happened to be talking to God when the fickle wind shifted?

On a positive note,

I would love for you to meet our neighbor three doors down

Whose hair is blue, and her little dog

Who is always with her in the stroller

With a bow in her bangs,

Who, when she (the dog) looks at me

Somehow sees straight through me,

Through my birth name and my family name,

Right through all my complexes and

Even through the next hundred poems that I will write

Heading for the elevator.