Recalibrating

I find my world disordered and undone

Reference points no longer apply the way they did

Rules have been stretched and broken so often

They have been shadowed into dim memory

So I recalibrate my moral compass

Against those of the political and corporate elite

I recalculate the depths of horror to vicariously endure

Against the streets of Mogadishu and Damascus

I index my feelings and emotions to this world

That serves up extremes of good and evil

Punctuated by interminable waiting

But in order to find to what degree the Nth is today

I need to baseline truth against beauty

Measure the depth of midnight when you’re all alone

Figure out what new shock deserves a scream or a tear

In this world of today

Where so much cruelty is served up on the table of commerce

Where miracles are commonplace even as sins proliferate

In this world that contains both heaven and hell

Whose borders shift and overlap

Leaving those of us who play the margins in a dim frontier

Unsure of limits and definitions and meanings

Constantly recalibrating perceptions

 

 

David Trudel    ©  2013