Dear diary

Poem by Harvey Gillman

I am so sorry that once again today
I have not been able to save the world.
Somehow there is never enough time.
Problems arise in unexpected places
and so, because of me, once more
the world will fall apart. All my fault.
Of course.

Early each morning I step out into the garden.
The sun joins me. Or the rain. The wind.
I must clear the ground, sweep away the leaves,
tidy up the earth. I must make sure again
that bamboo will not conquer my private Eden.
The bamboo will not be tamed, pushes out
new roots. Each night a new shoot appears.
It is a game we play. Each seeks conquest,
the bamboo and I. I must save the garden,
make good the mess that Adam and Eve created
when at the beginning of time the game began.

Meanwhile all around the earth is burning.
Memories and houses go up in smoke. Drones
dive and kill. My anger at the news is not enough,
is it, dear diary? It will not cleanse, will not mend the world.
And so, this bamboo feels my improving rage.
I choose my enemy with care, the adversary I love.
Each day I behold its beauty, its ruthless modesty,
its obedience to the dictates of its birth.

A white butterfly dances from leaf to leaf.
What, I wonder, are we born to do
when untidily we unfurl our growing wings?
We fly from day to day, playing as we do,
seeking the nectar that will please our tongue,
trying, as humans do, to overcome our rage and joy
of simply being alive in this small place,
learning perhaps to save what can be saved,
leaving the rest for someone else’s life.
Night will fall and cover with darkness
the leaves that strew another’s path.

We do what we can do
to save what can be saved
and save ourselves.

Each task unique.
Each task forever
incomplete.

(a bamboo haiku:
strangers pass, may find
a discarded trunk, fashion
flutes that fire the world?)

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