“I Watched the News Today”

It’s hard to imagine

The world beyond

Our own little place

With nothing around

Where birds sing

Snakes slither

With mist rising

Beyond the green canopy

That surrounds and isolates

And insulates

All that is outside.

Is it an illusion?

Or is it real?

The pictures on the screen

Gives a lie to what I see.

Nuclear war?

Bridge collapse?

Child murdered?

War in far places?

What does it mean?

It seems so far removed

From the natural world I see.

It must be false

As my senses and mind

Can’t comprehend such beauty here

And ugliness there.

I close my eyes and see darkness

I open them and see God’s creation.

So, why did I watch the news today?

29th May 2002, Townsend, Tennessee, United States of America.

-Richard