A Pretense of an Ark

The Fourth World does not emerge,

it is filled with change and yet,

in essence, it stays the same

It is an endless rain of danger

and death impatiently awaits;

although it  arrives both early and late.

The Fourth World was not discovered

It was born full grown, from those who own

The means to kill easily and at will, fill

the unpaid bills of generations past; it remains

a dark evil that lasts past sunrise.

The Fourth World is not a hell-bent continent

But an archipelago of human pain, where endless strife

strains the sinews of life. Pausing barely for breath

It lurches and careens down a mountain like

Boulders falling in an avalanche, woe be unto…

The path is strewn and the wreckage can break

The hard heart of the world, yet withstands

Turn the head, avert the heart, close the purse

Build walls of forgiving news, fold it into a blur

Undisturbed- the peace is a momentary glance;

A random dance to music from a source unknown

It is day and the steady rhythm is a racing heartbeat

The flare of sirens feed reports of success

on a Wall Street news ribbon. For in the Fourth World,

There are few remaining tears, the past has dreary years

and tomorrow the forecast is easy to say, more like today.

When sunlight fills the air, clouds make pretense of an Ark,

birds swoop low, and from a clearest glow of day comes

the deepest gray…the sudden flash and thunder, and

suddenly un-breathable air fills the suddenly un-breathing.

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Author's Note:

There is a Fourth World where war and conflict run rampant like virulent disease. It is in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Donetsk,  Central Africa, and Nigeria. Like a chain of islands surrounded by an unseen sea of utter turmoil, and they are connected by dreadful circumstance. It is up to the rest of us, the custodians of this planet- our lifeboat in the coldest Sea to do what must be done to bring the people of the Fourth World out of the grips of savagery. There have been heroic efforts and there have been instances of blind-eyed neglect. The fury of war is not a tame beast, it will always escape and find a new prey; it is the global human imperative, no one is safe from war until all are.