I was rummaging through some old files and came across this poem that I wrote in secondary school many, many years ago. Back then, we were not too sure that we would see tomorrow because of the incessant flexing muscles of the Cold War and the growing cries of environmental disasters on the near horizon.
Society seemed headed for collapse morally and economically. For us the Vietnam Conflict became a sad commentary on the loss of so many young men and the anger of a coming-of-age generation.
My generation felt isolated and alone. Hope could only be found in a song or a young woman’s smile or a young man’s shyness. We gazed at the night skies and wondered if we would ever touch the out there where there must be a better way of life. We felt a greater connection to the cosmos than to earth.
Carl Sagan’s THE COSMIC CONNECTION: An Extraterrestrial Perspective was a few years down the road. However, we felt the cosmic connection before this astronomer penned the words of his insightful book.
Here’s the free verse poem:
PLACES OF ISOLATION
The peak of Mount Kanchenjuna
The Kermadec Trench of the Pacific
The Martian rim of Olympus Mons
The lunar bottom of Hyginus Rille
The Dead Sea of the Old World
The Death Valley of the New World
Places:
apogee and perigee
Touchable and untouchable by man
The terminus a quo of existence
The terminus ad quem of existence
A modern metropolis necropolis
A Hopi’s Arizona burial ground
A midnight subway train
A midmorning commuter bus
An American city of people
An English village of memories
Places of Isolation
Tombstones of man’s inhumanity to himself
Shadows of Reality’s nightmare
The fortress at Masada
The crematorium at Auschwitz
A senior citizen
A nursing home inmate
An orphanage
A home
A friend
A spouse
A life
One’s self
Yesterday
Tomorrow
As one looks at the world
one beholds the places of isolation…
the cement prisons of time
the chemicals wrecks of man
the lost drops of destiny
the languor of missed opportunity
Love
untouched
unrealized
unsought…
Places of Isolation
And of tomorrow:
Most probably the earth without man…
354
G. D. Williams © 2012
Some Songs From The Era:
One Is The Loneliest Number
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSy_FRXqzZs
Bad Moon Rising
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmEGm-mraE
In The Year 2525
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiD2CGkoNts&feature=fvst
Spirit in the Sky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6TFW1F6oY0
In the Ghetto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox1Tore9nw
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1KtScrqtbc
War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk
Aquarius / Let The Sun Shine In
