The Gravity Beyond Our Blame

The universe absorbs our faults
although we are to blame again.

Another thing comes tumbling down,
and gravitation takes the fall.

A fence collapses.
Avalanches.
Mudslides plunge the land in muck.
A paradise becomes unmade.

We mourn and move in retrograde.

How should we reckon with descent?
With which excuse?
To what extent?

We prop our reasons with emotions,
heap more feelings straining sense,
then seem surprised when just an ounce
of truth would prove the tipping point
propelling yet another crash.

Upon the slopes, our sliding hopes:

rare species vanished,
forests leveled,
pages burning,
lesser learning,
glaciers melting,
choices dwindling,
exhausted sources none renew,
vital numbers plunged past zeroes,
worlds crumbling while we look away.

Among my failures, I have found
positions--inches--influence
the constancy of what can stay.

The losses add up.
How they weigh!

Humility has counseled me.

I cannot scapegoat gravity
nor point to physics like a child
who fearfully must pin the guilt
of having busted something dear
on anybody else so he
shall not be grounded, still may play.

Four dump trucks barrelled by today,
vibrating windows, glasses, cans.
New billboards boast of new estates.
An architect arrives with plans.

I'll sweep the shards and brace the shelf,
beware of setting any item
nowhere near a pinnacle
nor on the cracked floor with the ants,
just somewhere in the middle way
between the roof, my jar of clay.

It helps me keep things where they are.
Now very little drops too far.




The Gravity Beyond Our Blame © Copyright 2021, Robert J. Tiess.

View this poem at AllPoetry.com

247 words.  LNP challenge - link:
https://allpoetry.com/contest/2793840-After-Midnight...Be-Angry-At-The-Sun

For LNP:  Blanket per. on file.  I would need a reader, please.  Thank you.
Submitted: December 4, 2021









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