Melora Johnson's Muse

I don’t seem to know what to say so I’ll just offer this poem that was inspired today, a rough draft, take it for what it’s worth.

My Facebook Feed

My head hurts from the cold that lingers
and the recriminations of a tiny person
who cannot express herself sufficiently.
Are any of us so very different?

So much I should be doing –
I am tired and I sit.

My Facebook feed today shares –

Outrage once again for Trayvon Martin.
Outrage, finally, for a woman given 20 years
after firing shots meant to warn.
Outrage over the chemicals in our foods
and a missing warning on an anti-inflammatory drug.
Two separate ATV crashes killed man and woman.
A friend mourned a motorcyclist.
Many remembrances of a woman who had passed –
friend, wife, mother, aunt, sister – so much to all.

Birthdays, memes, encouragement and humor
seem outweighed by outrage and pain.

At lunch today, the profound climate change came up.
North pole has packed up and moved but why?
No one denied it, no one sought to place blame. It just is.
Yet the oil industry almost seeks to hasten it.

Has the world gone mad? Or did becoming an adult and parent simply wake me up?

Injustices and perplexities confound me.
Frivolities… taste stale and unprofitable.
A fortune cookie today admonished me –
When up and down seem impossible, try moving side to side.

Outrage, outrage, outrage
must be combated by humor and art.

There is a long view out my front porch
a tar road, a green field, trees, a hill and
blue skies reaching up to into white clouds, lilting sideways.