Strange Days – a poem

Strange Days

 

It is a strange week that has tracked me down –

Full of poignancy and sadness.

The death of a friend, who had already long gone,

Cast adrift in the fog.

The news that another has but weeks to open her eyes here –

Who blithely jokes that at least she is spared

The agony of that same fog –

A fog that like a creeping funeral pall hangs over us all

Like the latest modern scourge.

And amid the ruminations and sad reflection

The words of strangers intrude,

Whose pleasure is to be found in rudeness;

Who play the same playground sad game

Of bullying and ridicule

And seek amusement in hurting others.

And I’m in no mood to respond

Or counter in kind,

But merely wonder at the sickness that lies in the mind of men

Whose pleasure is but to destroy?

Ruefully looking back over the long furrows of time

Where the many seeds were sown with such great hope,

Seeds scattered in such love and joy,

Such expectation,

Now plants struggling to reach the light through the clutching grasp

Of the many weeds.

Yet still we trudge the land and plough

Though there are fewer of us

And no expectation of a good crop.

Wearily I pause to look back through the haze of distance

To the furrows ploughed by my father and grandfather before me

Now smoothed by wind and rain

And returned to nature.

It is time to unwrap the sandwiches,

Take out the flask of coffee,

And sit a while

Else we miss the singing of the birds.

 

Opher 1.4.2018