At last, I've put a finger
Firmly on a strange feeling
Before now I couldn't identify
When one sees pictures of hieroglyphs
Or tours a grand home from the previous century
Or as now when I carefully sift through
What is left of my parent's long life together.
Or when I see where a railroad track was removed
Or a one room schoolhouse standing in ruin.
What is this feeling so sad and so dear
It is the profound 'sense of loss.'
I feel we are losing the ability to be simple and free
I feel we are losing our basic survival instincts
To a mountain of plastic nothingness.
Our virtues are tied to commercial holidays
Our emotions milked with well designed ploys
We rely on calculators as we rely on this nothingness
To chart our lives as emptiness drives so many
Out of their minds.
No stability thrives, as security hides
From the amplified chaos the nothingness breeds
Can one construct from what's left
A life to preserve and use what others would refuse
In solitary satisfaction that these were correct actions
Are these surviving objects futile or essential clues?
-Kelly Voelker
