Amorphous clouds engulf me –
My true hand unseen
My heart frozen, unloved
My breath stilled and unworthy
My solid form deemed weak
What was supposed to shade me
Protect me
From the bleaching hanging sun
Now hurts my skin with its
Wispy viper tendrils
I thought you were my friend
But I missed the forecast for
Cloudy with a chance of
selfish entitlement.
—Irma © 2018
The entitlement of someone, the sun? The person the poem’s voice speaks to? Tied up in images from ozone depletion and climate change—a tangled web of sensory destruction.
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Hello! Wonderful interpretations! While this poem has some personal meaning to me, it is also a commentary on government agencies and officials that are supposed to protect us, that now seem to be doing the opposite.
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The personal is always also political 😊
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Truth! However, I have often felt that the sphere of influence can be larger on a personal level than the political. What do you think?
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Think global act local. And deb y felio’s opening essay about the acts of a lot of “ones” make community. Indeed, I agree that we can influence the personal space often more easily. But the complex interactions often shape or limit what we can do personally. We need all of it. Still, easier for us to work in our own space. And fortunately that benefits the larger. Some would even say that we need to work on the personal before or in order to change the larger polis. I think I concur with that, but then again I come from a counseling background 😊
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