This World Poem by David Self

The headlines gather like storm clouds at dawn,
Each carrying a weight that won't be gone.
Cities hum with worry beneath neon light,
While distant fires stain the edges of the night.
The oceans rise with stories no one hears,
Mountains watch in silence through the years.
Promises are traded, broken, made anew,
And truth sometimes feels harder to pursue.
Neighbors pass each other with lowered eyes,
Lost in separate worlds beneath the same skies.
Voices clash across invisible divides,
Each certain of the shore on which it rides.
Yet somehow morning still arrives on time,
Birds continue singing their untroubled rhyme.
A child laughs somewhere, a stranger lends a hand,
Small acts of grace still shape the land.
The world is a mess—untidy, loud, and flawed,
Scarred by greed, by fear, by battles long endured.
But amid the rubble of what falls apart,
Hope survives in the stubborn human heart.
Not because the darkness isn't real or near,
Not because there's nothing left to fear,
But because, despite the chaos we have spun,
People keep rebuilding, one by one.