moonbin

Despite the long tragedies 

of life

where every day we are confronted

with distant sorrow

like cities falling to dust

and then falling again

or closer home 

the news that young men 

take their own lives

and we know why 

without being told

we are asked to eke out hope

from the brutal carcass of the present. 

I don’t know

that I am equal to this task. 

I don’t know if I can look

at a hard, broken thing

and pretend it is otherwise