Buck
yourself up you say granddad, the worlds a wonderful place if you just look for
it.I’d love to be as delusional as you
are granddad, still as innocent as the day you were born, aren’t ya.
Okay,
okay, yes where we are right now, this very spot, takes my breath away, fills
me up, it is truly beautiful, I love being here.(And I do love you.)
This
meadow where we sit, look at it look at it, look how beautiful it is.The flowers!The flowers! Oh so beautifully lovely! But what you don’t see granddad
is the battle beneath, the never ending battle between predator and prey.Little tiny life forms forever at war.Insect eats insect.Bird eats insect, small mammals eat
insect.Birds of prey eat small birds
and small mammals, big mammals eat little mammals; it just goes on and on.
Look
over there granddad, the lambs – well sheep really – nibbling at the grass on
yonder hill, how idyllic a scene.But
you must realise they are not there to make the world look pretty.They will end up on your plate granddad, we
are their predator, they are our prey.Yes I know you’ve never killed one – we leave that to someone else,
someone else in some distant abattoir.The workers there must become immune to death or relish it, killing as
cruelly as they can.I wouldn’t like to
be them.
You
think I’m a pessimist granddad – well I guess I am, maybe a realist?Do I think this world a wonderful place?Overall, no.But now and again wonderful things do happen here and I do love
life.There are some beautiful things
here granddad, including you, beauty breathes from you, straight from that
wonderful mind of yours.So right now,
this very minute, the world is indeed
beautiful, a wonderful place to be.
Thanks
granddad.
Anna
:o]
Sumana’s
prompt today (at Poets United) is that of The World Is A Beautiful Place, this being the
first line and title of a wonderful poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Above
is my response to same, this written as prose.
There
is no flag fluttering overhead, no patriotic symbol ‘neath which we, hand on
heart, pledge allegiance.We are just us.
Nevertheless our flag marks out who we are, from whence we came or if new
citizens, where we now reside.
Red
white & blue the Union Flag (or Jack), a flag to signify the union of England and Scotland in 1606.(Sadly, in this divided world of ours, ?some
?many in Scotland
now wish independence.)The Union flag
bears many a stain of the blood of others, has fluttered over horrors I cannot
even imagine.I would suggest that the
flags of many (most?) nations share similar shameful histories, these histories being written even now.
Am I
proud to be British, English – I think I am.If not quite proud, seeing the strife that scars the world today – I am
glad I am.I feel safe here, mostly
safe, relatively safe, fearful sometimes perhaps. I think (perhaps viewing
through rose-tinted glasses) that the silent majority of us Brits are okay as
people.Am I proud to be British,
English – probably.Am I proud to be
human – definitely not.
Flags flutter madly,
earth signals in semaphore –
winter is coming
Anna
:o]
Written
for Susan’s prompt at Poets United where she asks us to write of National Flag(s).My response a bit of doom and gloom perhaps,
but sadly, this is how I view this world of ours at present.
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