"DUN" - A POEM

Paul Baum - "Harvested Fields in a Flat Landscape"

A hint of brown in the low cloud layer, dun
they call it, light reflected from
fields cut to stubble, leaves moving to umber,
russet and gold, chlorophyll in retrograde,
temperate zone transitioning
from relentless summer cheer to winter chill
    dull, sad, depressing, this color,
     the consensus view, death before we renew
       dissonances old, unresolved.
It all comes back to this, always, always this,
metaphors , similes, nature
imagery because sprouting and budding,
growing and frost reassure us,
comfort with predictability, relax
into the what we can see, know,
     surety that does not require decision,
      just observation, no payment
       due or pestering for more and more and more,
just a force beyond our control,
independent of the press of human choice
that promises all, but does not
guarantee, success in productivity,
hides like snow blindness the contours
of reality and downside risk ignored
     by easy winners fattening
      on a harvest of accepted fictions sown
       to distract, deflect their weakness.
God paternal or mother earth eternal,
some insist on the either/or
then moot the argument with a willfulness
of neither that makes petulance
itself a form of worship, a self-focus
oblivious to living things,
     pretend the sphere is flat, the axis upright
not a bit off plumb, stay indoors
when clouds refuse to endorse the light logic
that prefers bright and brash and loud
to the subtleties of consideration
possible without the raw glare
of uninterrupted sun, the surge and ebb
of atmosphere necessary
     as the tides scrubbing sores humanity leaves
      on the beachhead of creation.
       Tilt on, dear earth, even if thy will be dun.

(Marthe G. Walsh)

Image from WikiGallery.