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Thursday, November 19, 2020

STANDING STILL AND LISTENING

by George Salamon




"Something is dying, but we do not yet know what it is… Something is trying to be born, but we cannot say what it is either… The old is in a state of suspended animation; the new stands at a threshold it cannot yet cross,"  —Fintan O'Toole, "Democracy's Afterlife," The New York Review of Books, December 3, 2020.


I envy those who can
See the future coming.
It's easier to endure if
You are sure, or if you
Are needed, shepherd
Or sheep, but you must
Not get scared as the
Forces unfold, just old,
And if you're like me,
Left high and dry of just
What they'll sow or reap.


George Salamon writes a poem occasionally, but is worried much of the time about what his granddaughter's generation can expect. He has recently contributed to The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems, Dissident Voice, and The New Verse News from St. Louis, MO.