January 2025

Rarely do we find anything complimentary to say
about our own present day. But in works of
nostalgia and historical fantasy, we revel.
Golden times. Greener grass. Greatness
we once had. Might we make it so, again?
But the past is an empty promise
of an impossible future. Break new ground!
Don’t endlessly dig up your ancestors
and cover yourself in their faded glory.
The lies they told themselves were just the same.
They too looked back instead of forward and,
like us, left the future to take care of itself;
left the future like a child in a pram
parked outside a store, unattended, easy prey,
thumbs up for the opportunist who promises
unicorns and rainbows with a wide smile,
an untroubled conscience and an unlikely toupée.

This article was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2025 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.