If Every Disaster Were Just a Bad Dream!

The past is not the well-preserved remains of something
    excavated by archaeologists. Bad situations
were always present in the past as they are now.
For instance, crossings by unaccompanied Mexican minors
rise in the middle of this pandemic, and a North Korean gymnast
jumps the border fence to freedom in its southern neighbor.
The thing we could not otherwise understand
    is that the shock will never be far from over.
With the good and the bad clashing, the area of conflict changes.
It might not reduce your wrinkles but it’s what it always was.

My sadness intercepts its counterpart like a rival aircraft
    when their ties are at a low. No quirkiness for sure.
I badly need something sustainable to lift my spirits
or I must be rolling out sweeping changes in my plan now.
It must be as good as troop pullouts from a war-ravaged country
or a bailout for a cash-strapped government.
But I receive nothing else upfront except consolation
    that stands out among other things under the sun.
Wherever I jet in to, I can’t avoid my wizened face
or pull the plug on my never-ending hallucinations.

Yet life is like uncertainty about an uncertified vaccine.
    It doesn’t give you the terms of agreement; it’s blank there.
Look at it again in disbelief. Nothing can break its gridlock.
Yet it’s not something just moments from the end.
Rather the lust for it might swell like yeast dough.
When I get something long desired, I recall
the happiness of checkered keelbacks with their fangs
    deep into skipper frogs or skinks among hyacinths
in our backyard pond. I also feel ecstatic
about wildlife using sky bridges to cross interstate highways.

You might be reeling from something, and out of necessity
    you must brace for something else yet again.
I balk at the speeches – made by some of its champions –
littered with deliberate lies and half-truths.
Whatever, I don’t subscribe to anyone’s idea
of a nail-biter or a do-or-die though I feel the pressure.
Despite fairy tales being the reality in childhood,
    you continuously weigh in before you get bloodied
in your boxing fights all your life, and there’s no retirement.
Yet art carves a form out of chaos, and I feel good about it.