Consensus reality
warns us to deny the truth.
All well justified in the end, we'll say. We tried.
And true to our liberal values,
we will have done our best
to avoid the tempest
ravaging the teapot for years now,
stirring up a toxic brew.
Until pulled centrifugally
toward the edge to experience - firsthand -
famine, pestilence, and war,
we'll continue our parade of human endeavour
right to the lip of the grave.
It's what we've worked for, we'll say.
Credit was extended to bolster the illusion ...sorry...
consensus reality, that we - deserving three squares a day,
plus safety and shelter, while clothed
in our ignorance and privilege - were born
within Darwin's margin of error.
But what if he was wrong
and it's not about the fit
and the laws of the capitalist jungle?
Might the governing principles be simpler?
Air, sun, water, rich soil, the communal hearth,
the tender art of growing food, nurturing the young,
while absorbing the stories of our ancestors and lifting our hearts
with gratitude in song and dance and prayer.
A decade ago we still had a chance, then,
in a slim moment, we crossed the line.
Did you feel it too? Our eyes met,
but the illusion, by now too well entrenched,
kept us from acknowledging each other.
If there's no turning back,
the least we can do
is love like there's no tomorrow.
We've spent our future already.
The jackals are here to collect.
What are we afraid of?
It's just flesh and bones, in the end. Dust.