Finches crowd the feeders
as a masked man fills the suet
sucking in his own stale air.
We all looked alike for over a year.
Maybe to them we always did.
Masks made from tee shirts,
faded rags from under the sink,
repurposed under the foot
of dusty sewing machines
pulled out of closets.
With thread directed through the eye
of a world that tightened around us,
we grew suspicious and more alone.
In the evening we howled off porches
like wolves at the moon
(doomed one day to follow them gone)
sang from balconies and from behind barricades
for our flamethrower super heroes
who lived in hotels and slept on cots
to save this suicidal world
from behind their masks.
With these in mind: Absence of Color from Poets and Storytellers and Earthweal (poetry for a changing world), I dusted off an old subject that went and grew legs.
18 comments:
Enjoyed. The last two year has revealed so much I would have probably not known about those we share this world with.
Tony,
In some ways it has brought us closer together. We were always ALL in it together but this scourge has made it more obvious. Thanks!
Wonderfully presented, Yvonne. No matter how well-masked, Humanity reveals itself. Thanks.
Yvonne, your poem is one of the finest I've read describing the last two years of life.
Who says the wild can't be masked? So love the free spirit inside all the confines.
Wonderfully realised – so factual and yet like something from an adventure movie.
Oh this is wonderful.........so true those closing lines, hospital folk trying to save this suicidal world..........I suspect they are burning out by now. I feel I am, in utter discouragement at what is happening in Canada at the moment, backed by right wing extremists in the USA and a lot of false information. Some of them were actually singing Oh Canada during the melee. Sigh.
Ron,
Thank you.
Helen,
Thanks! Sweet.
Brendan,
Thanks. I'd gotten used to the darn things, especially in winter.
Rosemary,
An adventure movie? Someone someday will no doubt direct one. Thanks!
Sherry,
Thank you. I just read about the disruptions in Ottawa. It sounds like the police need to clamp down on the raucous. Truckers blaring their horns all night? Christ! They used to break up parties for loud music. Where's the govt. backbone to deal with the hooligans? It's always a few that stage a stink. Probably with outside "help" to create chaos. Is anarchy the ultimate goal?
Thank you for liking my Quadrille and the sweet message. Happy Tuesday.
The ugly, the bad, but also...good. It's there.
An excellent poem! That last stanza is superb. We need to continue to celebrate our flamethrower superheroes….
All that solidarity seems to be over, mob rule led by truckers, stirred up by ignorant flat-earthers and conspiracy theorists. Who even thinks about the hospital workers these days?
A masterful poem, Yvonne, captures the moment, the times. JIM
Here's to our flamethrower superheroes! A masterful poem, Yvonne.
The tone sings of the last few years. The speaker's voice makes me think of a documentary. As if I am seeing history from far away, but the details makes the experience feel very close.
Magaly,
Thank you for the keen insight of your comment.
"We all looked alike for over a year.
Maybe to them we always did." And yet, some are flamethrower heroes, and those of us at home know them. A marvelous tribute, in a circle of caring: Bird to human to superhuman!
Susan,
Hi and thank you!!
My daughter is a flamethrower superhero, subject close to my mama bird heart!
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