Dire Times & Endless Desire (Like A Streetcar) Poem by S. R. Lavin

I, the grandfather,
who slept on the slope of the hill, facing east.
I had my children with the woman I loved.

So long ago. Yet, not so long ago
when the news came, mudslides
killed hundreds, in Rio.
An entire city in Australia
evacuated. Despotic dictators
fleeing with gold bricks
packed into limousines,
flown to safe haven.

Tsunami and meltdown -
these enemies
and invaders
against ourselves

our desires
never to perish
or to be vanquished.

How many times we have lived
beyond the possible.
How impossible it seems.

Vulnerable and brought to sobriety

all like angels

looking up

into the heavens