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Nocturnes: Gone The Neighborhood
Our nearest neighbors were (to use the most
polite wording) unpleasant. They controlled
a vast amount of land, fertile and well
watered. But they divided it a long
time past, and subdivided even more
among their numerous descendents (most
of whom were envious of some relative
or other). Some of their comic squabbles
had escalated to sad tragedy---
death at worst, or some crippling injury.
They often argued over certain gods
in whom they had believed, and on whom they
had often staked their very destinies:
Money, and Brute Force were the gods of whom
they spoke of most, and tried hardest to please.
Of course, some lived far better than their kin,
and this created violent jealousy
of produce, wealth, and sometimes even how
to reproduce. I think their broadcasts told
the honest, and profoundest, truth about
them: in these vignettes, they portrayed themselves
as upright heroes . . . dastard villians . . . or
comic buffons (this latter was the most
correct). Then, recently, they summoned one
who spoke more foolishly, and with bombast,
than ever they, or we, had heard before.
And this clown---glowing orange from the most
conflicted passions (like a young bully
passed over by maturity's process)---
ordered the detonation of a bomb
ensheathed in cobalt that released the force---
the primal fire---that keeps our star alight
(though it is very distant from our home,
and gleams but precious little through our days).
Our neighbors' home (safely distant from ours)
is shrouded in a sparkling, radiant fog
the color of their steel, and deadlier,
for it has slain all forms of life thereon.
It is too far away to have effect
upon our surfaces as they present
their red appearance. That small sphere, though once
so green and blue, and lovely in our sky,
is dead by its inhabitants' unbound
lust to obtain, and hold, the final word.
We are alone now, without neighbors to
distract us from our own immense malaise
on this dull home that never changes its
identifying color tones---the same
always. But stare at that gray sphere, up there,
so blue and green it once was; now, dull gray.
Thus, you can understand why we can be
content with what is ours; much like a phrase.
a catchphrase that our fomer neighbors used
some five decades of their years ago---
and much repeated in their media;
ironic these words, "Better red than dead."
