by George Salamon
“‘All the cemeteries are full': Palestinians buried in a mass grave in Gaza.” —Reuters, November 22, 2023
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." —John Donne, Meditation 17, 1623
On the pile of rubble
the wailing of a mother
means nothing.
On the broken street
the raised fist of a father,
nothing.
The weeping of entire
populations on both sides,
nothing.
The killing of the air,
the end of our oceans,
nothing
In times of exhaustion
and nihilism, values
have vanished and we
are turning into machines,
surviving to function, not
to live.
George Salamon thinks the lords of Silicon Valley have, million clicks after millions of more clicks, succeeded into turning most of our minds and hearts into file clerks and bean counters.