We work in obscurity
tend gardens, go shopping,
it’s the year two thousand
and twenty four,

and those of us
who demonstrated
(without long term effect)
for peace, worked to feed and
then understand our children,

did aerobics, yoga, meditation
and arcane diets for health
as if the body was a holy temple,

then went to the PTA meeting,
performed in local theatre,
hammered away in habitats
for nearby humanity,

We wonder why
good, sensible,
well-meaning
do unto others
suffer the little children (not)
golden rules
seem to be forgotten,

And with loudspeakers of
me, mine, us,
build the walls, stay out,
not my people,
not my color,
why should we pay,
guns don’t kill people,
business for profit,
not for good,
what were formerly
gauche lies and whispers
fill the air,

and there are now
Monsters on the land.