The World Is On Fire – an #improv #poem

A deathly silence
filled the void of wonder
today.
The world rang
loudly with that silence.

A ladder appeared
in front of me.
Its top-most rung
was hope and expectation.

But the many steps
before that include
fear,
anxiety,
shame,
dread,
and more.

I could not imagine
a more fearful moment
than this:
That all I had hoped for
and all we had built
together

could be scuttled
completely
by the violent act
of yet another
“lone gunman”.

I hate to tell you this…
No. I hate to tell me this:
no one ever acts alone.

We human beings and
each action we take
is the sum of everything
that has come before.
No matter how much
we may want to be alone,

we are never alone.

And yes, this is
one more
reason that the top
rung is unreachable
right now.

Someone’s evening
vespers ring out in
our neighborhood;
a chant filled with
fear.
Or was that only
my projection?

Perhaps this projection
is my fear being backlit,
thrown onto a vast screen
of the world;

somewhere for me to
send the crappy
sensations of
the part of me that is
a tiny puppy, afraid
of the fireworks of life;

and hunkering down
in the corner, under
the rocking chair.
Hoping against hope
that I might be safe
here for the tiniest moment.

I know safety
is an illusion. But
I still long for it.

Somehow, I went for years,
thinking that humanity was
on the way to be its better
self.

I thought I was done with
my years of action and
activism. For now I am
weary. Tired of the
rhetoric of hate.
So, I take my rest.

When I went to sleep last
night, how was I to know
that I would wake up
to find

the world is on fire?

~ spontaneously created, unedited by Stan Stewart
~ written on Sunday, 14th July, 2024 after at least 7 people were killed by drive-by shootings in Birmingham, Alabama, USA
~ Copyright ©️ 2024 by Stan Stewart and muz4now, inc. All rights reserved.