Sapiens

Robert Ronnow
The Imaginary i

Sapiens

Reading Yuval Noah Harari’s brief
history of humankind, entertaining
but why care about the past, the dead don’t
live to see it, or the singularity.
WWII must have caused anxiety
as do today’s assaults on democracy.
Nevertheless we make our own choices,
or else. Yet we may concede, observe,
realize and accept we lack data,
or skills or tools to interpret data.
Contentment, community, family
and our place in it, trees have a special
winter beauty, not every seed becomes
a flower, power must be challenged by
power and perhaps the universe has
reversed its decision on us. What am I
learning, sitting, watching the seasons turning?

To act and react is itself a fever
akin to the fittest’s survival. In-
significant and mighty happenings,
the selfsame imaginary i,
finding the humor in the cholera,
daily low intensity warfare. Who’s
in authority, who’s in command here?
Who can say if all will be given or well?
Really, it’s a perfect day, a new life
begins, things are said, mistakes are made.
A man weeps for himself going forward,
keeping death before him without perjury.
Big Red One, 442nd, SS
Einsatzgruppen, Harlem Hellfighters,
Royal Gurkha Rifles, Screaming Eagles,
82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain. We can't
know what we’ve done until we're forgotten.