shall we be quiet?

the storms are crashing even on the sunniest of days

and unsettlement hangs like mist, stuck to skin,

our clothes inside the wardrobe are covered in moths.

there were days, of course, when we lay on the grass,

days of a cool summer breeze. The heat didn’t bother us

as we ran our fingers across worlds and felt pleased

that this one was ours.

but as we touch the skies, now, thoughts of how

electricity isn’t sourced right, and the seas are filled with

waste, and one day fires and floods will make

every landscape barren, devastated and the poorest

will die, all because the richest now thrive,

thoughts that nothing good will happen

until it’s very much too late,

if we tried to touch the skies, now,

these thoughts overbear us and pleasure

is wound too tightly around pain.

this is what has changed then. without

certainty of the future, there is no trust, faith, relief

without it, contentedness is incomplete.