fallen upon

We do not, perhaps, expect the very sky

To descend upon us, all chunks and wedges

As it did upon the simple, deluded chick

Of the nursery rhyme of long ago

(A child’s verse, perhaps, but promulgated and purveyed

By those older, perhaps wiser, yet still wholly unable

To shake the terror of the meteorological and inexplicable.)

We have, as we have aged,

Eschewed the black-and-white of childhood cosmology

In order to make our gray-tinged bargain with the heavens,

Asking not for its benediction,

But content ourselves with negotiating

For a lack of outright malevolence,

And though our rationality tells us

It cannot come down on us chock-a-block and helter-skelter,

We nonetheless study the sky with wariness

Poorly cloaked as studious indifference.

 

 

Reviews

[Beccy]

The black and white of the child is purer than those grey tinged bargains I feel, though I trust it will be while before I am able to prove such. Meantime, and as you so succinctly observed in your reply to jacob; ducking and dodging increasingly becomes the order of the day.

Beccy.

[marilyn 1225]

at my age, I relate to your poem and its power and definitely its ending.. well written, great use of words... excellent

[marilyn 1225]

at my age, I relate to your poem and its power and definitely its ending.. well written, great use of words... excellent

[h d e rushin]

as the grandson of a man who refused to believe that planes could get off the ground...I can understand the thought....Is it not more animism when we give over to plants and animals the spirit of sky and heaven and earth; or to the philosophy of nursery rhymes that still hold a sort of truth even when that truth is hidden in fable and happy endings? And isn't this why we open our palms and face them upwards even in the pouring rain?......because seeing ain't the same as feeling and getting wet is more charming than drying out.

When the sky fell in Hamburg in 45 it really was falling
When it fell in Kandahar in 06 it really was falling.
When it fell in Alepo in 2016 it really was falling.
See what I mean wk? Metaphors are just the literal substitutes of real events....

wonderful story....dana

[W.k.kortas]

You mention Hamburg, and I am brought to mind of Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse Five--perhaps our nursery rhymes are just preparing us for future terrors more palapable than the monsters under our bed-. And they're bad enough.

[Ken Simm.]

It has been noted that nursery rhymes were once alot more dangerous. As you say malevolent even.
This was to teach us what? The importance of evil in our lives or as you suggest that we need to wary of indifference to the world around us and perhaps certain brothers of middle European extraction?
This is of a standard that surpasses most if not all on this bit of the ether and quite a few other places too.
I do tend to look at the sky a lot, wondering.

[W.k.kortas]

The sky, not unlike our memories, tend to be unreliable, old friend.

[Petar Oklobdzija]

such a smooth reading experience, well done!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i think for us older folk, the sky just falls in a different way....
and some of us with enough wisdom, are able to ignore the false alarms, or else, we just don't give a darn anymore.

let it fall....we say.
j.

[W.k.kortas]

That's because the years have made us better at ducking and dodging, Jacob.