At the request of a #PawpawFanatic on Facebook, I followed up with a limerick:
If you don’t listen,
and plug your ears, it becomes
hard to talk to you.
She wants more,
cracks open the door,
slowly shutting it
as he droans on,
drones on
and on
and when he asks
what she needs
“Nothing.”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.
I was wondering who
you were talking to.”
And doesn’t that really ask
the penultimate question?
“Who am I talking to?
What am I talking to?
What am I talking to who about?”
Does it matter?
Why should I care?
As I slip into
the abyss
of Nyquil-induced slumber,
I can only hope my alarm
eventually wakes me up.
And then,
that I won’t need melatonin
to go back to sleep
again.
Is he pretentious,
talented,
whimsical,
or just exhausted
and silly?
At last,
he is writing,
worried about what others think.
He hasn’t done that
in a long time.
He hasn’t cared.
A half a century ago
my character yelled:
“I’m responsible!”
on stage.
I’m not certain that,
back then,
I knew what the phrase meant:
“I’m responsible!”
Now, decades past,
I understand that,
at my core,
I’m responsible.
It’s silly to blame
anyone else
for anything bad
in my life,
because it’s all good,
as long as
I think it is
and want it to be.
I’m responsilbe
for that.
Just when I thought
I wouldn’t care,
folks who brought me here
can’t be left there.
There’s much I want
to go and do.
I imagine at one time
they did too.
But then I and you
came to be,
and they stayed and cared
for you and me.
Now it’s our turn to watch and tend;
As they did before, we’ll help to their end.
I’m called tree hugger,
greener,
environmentalist,
eco-warrior.
I call myself
those names, too.
But when I see
red-faced screamers
demanding that
governments and nations
make accords,
do something,
force compliance,
I back away.
Giving government
more power
is not where I’ll waste
my waste-fighting
eco-warrior
energies.
Haven’t we learned
from Muir,
Thoreau,
Leopold,
and others?
They DID,
and they wrote
about what they DID.
Movements started
with the power of
DOING,
with the power
of words.
They introduced others
to the beauty
and wonder
and peace,
and joy
found in God’s Creations,
in Mother Nature.
They partnered
with God,
with Nature,
to help folks,
the common man and woman,
feel love for
and wonder at
all God’s creations.
Because how will I
partner with,
love,
and protect
a creation
I’ve never experienced?
This was prompted by an essay on individual responsibility in environmentalism.
I must be always/
positive, and give peace on/
earth, good will to all.
— The backstory for this poem was my take on Longfellow’s poem “I heard the Bells”, and also a haiku inspired by a prose piece Kate Phillips wrote. You can read it here.
Instead of scenic views and observations,
we watch reels.
Instead of conversations:
“Look at this.”