I’m worn out by talk of devastation
I walk out the door, turning back to twist
the key in the sticky lock. On the street
my first impulse is to look around, tilt
my ear to the faintest sounds, summon
a semblance of optimism;
but looking for the best in everything
can feel like I’m lying to myself.
Then I’m back to rehashing bad news:
forests burning and poisonous plastics
choking life in the oceans.
Throughout the day I watch us, humankind,
stampeding child-gods enraged by hunger,
and I’m convinced no one can save the whales.
There are parents waking beside the heaped ruin
that was their town, people with no place else to go,
but there is a hook in their minds
leading them toward thoughts of rebuilt homes;
it’s in my thoughts too. Always, but especially
in the early morning, I summon
someone or something to love.
David Belcher lives on the north coast of Wales, and he is a member of several poetry forums. David writes and reads poetry because he enjoys it, and for no other reason. He is not a very complicated person.