I Sing of an age that’s almost flown
Birds whose voices raised the morning sky
Wild landscapes, spread out to receive the naked sun
Trees whose roots embraced the earth, yet towered high
Seeds that sprang up fragile life, silent but for the wind
I sing of the age of crumbling dust
Rumbling wheeled boxes that fume with piercing cries
Houses molded for masses, as if carved from a single stone
Plants with their exhalations of thick smoke, clouding corroded concrete fields
Forests that burn while communities fall
Beneath a cacophony of chorused lies
Millions enslaved to masters ticking on the wall
Hands that wring the time from unlived lives
Endless games of monopoly and musical coins
Galleries of staged photographs, manufactured mirrors to memory
Chiseled bodies, carved into perfection, whose occupants still seethe with self-loathing and hate
Gold palaces, beneath which bones rattle the dark restlessly
Stories of renewal on tips of tongues that never tasted rain
The deserts of souls whose blood runs dry
Endless grey complacency to numb the festering and open wounds
A harvest of pain sewn from all we deny
Wars waged to sunder, to ravish with rage
A wasteland of frightened faces fleeing for shelter, turned away
Nuclear families forced to split apart, fission into half-lives
Screams in school yards and the drip of silence cold as death
Generations gaunt and starving and those who crushed them to make their start
Spilled greed that leaves a spreading stain
A sea of fear to fill the ever-widening divide
ANONYMOUS sentries sent to defend and guard against each broken heart
Children who are taught to lose themselves before they’re formed
Men and women wanderers with vacant hollow eyes
Their tears from banished terrors fall stillborn
Life lingers, though breath’s motion fades as oceans rise
I sing of an age bereft and slowly breaking
Each, though aching, standing alone
Among the paths still left to us for taking
Could we accept and meet this age, and one another, as our own
The Sound of What Happens 
Powerful words.
Thanks so much for your comment, Janice. I do wish I could have put my words to something more hopeful; but doing so would be an injustice to the truth as things stand. Glad you stopped by.
I feel hope has little value without a clear willingness to see and speak of what ails us. Unless we recognize our challenges positive steps cannot be taken and there is probably less reason for hope. I feel people often confuse speaking about issues with negativity. I don’t think the two necessarily go hand in hand. All that to say I agree, it’s important to speak ‘to the truth as things stand.’
Powerful and sad, Éilis, but I still believe there’s hope. Xxx
Thanks, Ali. I agree, the options seem to be Hope or despair. And I keep thinking about an excellent point I read the other day that despair is a sedative. It is one of the main tactics that oppressive systems use to keep down any one in opposition. And they can only do this affectively if people start believing the lie that they are powerless and that other people can determine or a race who they are. There is always a choice even if the only thing we have control over is our attitude or our thoughts. And in that, hope can always take hold.