For anyone

Briefly or lengthily

Exposed to the ravages

Of natural disasters:

Hurricanes

Floods

Fires

Eruptions

Famine

Pestilence

Disease -

 

Or, worse

To the ravages of War

Deliberately

Coldly

Ruthlessly inflicted

One man upon another

Upon women and children

Killing

Maiming

Laying waste all shelter

And sustenance.

Daily destruction

For dominance!

To annihilate those

'Who don't think like us!'

 

It must be so hard

To hear Us at Home

Where we watch the world

Like a movie in selected bits

Fed to us for controlled consumption

Who, in our daily intercourse of living

Speak confidently

Of God and angels

And Heaven when we die.

 

For any such man or woman

We must seem like

Deluded idiots.

How could we not!

But - what could be conceived

As an alternative?

 

 

 

Cynthia Buell Thomas, Mar, 2018