A Letter to My Grandchild

If you’re reading this, it means some of us somehow survived,

It means maybe, just maybe, we’re not a lost cause,

The human race.

 

If you’re reading this, then somehow some of us woke,

Woke up from our self-inflicted deep slumber.

Woke up from our self-induced myopia.

For ours was a generation that whined more than we worked,

Talked more than we listened, Argued more than we reasoned.

 

If you’re reading this, I sure hope you’re not like grandpa,

For in our days we threw reason to the dogs, logic to the gutter

Put fiction on the passenger seat and fact in the rearview.

Of corruption and social evils we complained, Oh how we pointed fingers,

But only when it touched us not. And when it did we weren’t unprepared,

Tribal targeting we’d quip. Politically instigated we’d blabber.

 

If you’re reading this, it means you’ve inherited the sorry remnants,

Of the potential we were all capable of accomplishing in entirety,

But towards which we divorced our focus.

Yet they called us millennials you know, the tech generation,

The know it all et al…

What a waste of good phrases.

For we were too focused on being right to care about the truth.

 

Solutions were within reach, just not a soul ready to clinch.

We were busy. Busy did I say? Oh yeah…

Busy turning on each other, busy finger-pointing.

Busy wallowing, in the short-lived pleasure,

Of watching our own kind meet a fate, A fate just blocks away to our own doorsteps.

Wonder you may dearest grandchild, of the mental contraceptives we had taken,

An overdose no less. I shamelessly cower, devoid of any defense.

 

If you’re reading this, it means history is written.

And the ink is dry. The ship to our salvation long sailed,

For sheer lack of willing travelers.

I have a torch not to pass to you, but it’s your world now.

Whatever happens in your time, no matter the circumstances,

Don’t forget to be human.

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One thought on “A Letter to My Grandchild

  • April 20, 2017 at 1:25 pm
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    ‘Solutions were within reach, just not a soul ready to clinch.’ Now when i hear poetry, i think of this poem. It’s awesome.

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