The Blight / Diamonds into Dust

The Blight / Diamonds into Dust

The things that once lit up our eyes may leave
Us later quite unmoved, except in memory—
As even curiosity recedes
And what had meaning seems as meaningless.

And then we look around us and perceive
The tawdry nature of the lives we lead
And so are filled with such a hopelessness
That remnant zests are turned to apathies.

The things that needed our attention seem
Undoable, as tasks neglected grow
To mountains in our minds. We cannot climb
These obstacles—and slide towards despair.

******

And some of us are graced or cursed in that
We see the grays between the black and white,
And this may give us insight, tolerance—
But also predispose us for the blight.

And that’s the cheerless gray that stalks the men
And women—even children—of our times,
And rarely leaves the elder folk untouched—
The blight that turns our diamonds into dust.

******

How many children’s eyes, in war and peace,
Have lost their brightness and been dulled by time?
How many men and women trudge the streets
Or sit or lie—and wait for their release?

What cure is there for this—our malady
That might be masked by all the razzmatazz
That passes for modernity—the jive
That hides the plagues to which it always leads?

Well surely, dropping all the plastic cheer
That’s manufactured in our modern mills
Might be a step towards that sanity
Whose absence leads to mayhem—and to this.

2018 April 17th Tue.
Brooklyn, New York