Branch Brook April 14, 2018

album

Barbour Pond April 13, 2018

album

wishful thinking

The woman talking with us after exercise class

Repeats the lament that it’s not easy getting old

Surprising me with her comeback to my cliché

When I replied that it’s better than the alternative.

Not always, she said, the alternative may be welcome

When you know where you’re going

Implying she thinks she’s going to heaven

Perhaps looking to me to echo her back.

Well, I know where I’m going for sure

We’ll all reassemble in a place called oblivion

Except we won’t exist anymore as individuals

Just the stuff we all are made of getting recycled.

This is the no nonsense future she would deny

As if repeating a prayer will make it not so

Paying her tithe to hear the promise of an afterlife

Her reward for compliance with what she is told.

I forget how the feudal superstitions still hold sway for some

Since I never join in their ritual gatherings to worship

Reciting the anachronistic language of lords

Intoning belief in their deity and obeisance to a book.

And who am I to judge what’s the harm in it you may ask

How does this figurative opiate compare to the real thing

When the self-righteous justify unholy wars against the infidels

Who do not adhere to their version of ignorant dogma.

And yet I say nothing to her, keeping my distance

Having no desire to try to persuade her otherwise

Knowing the way that humans are susceptible to credulity

Keeping the faith against all evidence of false tenets.

I take comfort in the surveys reporting declining attendance

Though the withdrawal is passive and seldom political

And the religious right holds far too much power

Still I wish all churches would just wither away.

Darlington Lake April 12, 2018

album