A Plague

Drop it into a drink
of warm water
and it bends easily.
Willow branches become
wreathes
like me, like us.
So easy to move and
sickly, even easier to mold.

When did I become so limp
and easy to tie into knots?
I do not like this acceptance.
I was so accustomed to resisting.

I have lost a fight
and dare not believe.
Not in things that can’t be proven
because all too often
wishes and passions
have been snuffed out
like the hot cherry of a
pipe loaded with vanilla tobacco

Dreams, aspirations,
all fleeting enjoyments
that end when non-believers
tap the bowl
onto rocks or benches
and leave a tiny pile of ash
where love can’t grow.
How do we, when barely burning
keep a fire warm and stoked
when the world around us is wet
with rain
and logic
and apathy.

It is hard to be a simmering wick
when caught in the monsoons
of a dying society
where mystery doesn’t exist
and magic is unacceptable.
How do we burn?
and how do we keep the fires
able to fly if dark windows have become
preferable to ones lit by candles?

How do we, the artist
the dreamer
the passions
survive in a dead world
that is focused on what is just
or what is feasible,
what is desirable,
or what is needed?
We want the simplest of things.
To feel a part of something
to feel humbled
to feel needed
to feel loved.
to feel.

We live in the wrong world.
Because the things we need
are deemed unnecessary.
We need passion, we need dreams,
and we need words.
But words are just words
to a world that doesn’t see them as more.