Failure of Imagination

My concern this week is that
the fear and trauma of recent days
threatens to diminish our imagination.

Have you any idea how important
our collective imagination is?

Consider the tragedy of 9/11.
Even the most influential among us
believed we would not have been 
so defenseless.

Collectively we don't quite believe
the Climate Crisis is happening 
all around us even when we see it.

We generally focus on the 
individual pieces of the puzzle, 
oblivious to the bigger picture 

Which leads us to look around
for who or what to blame and
maybe dismiss connections in front of us.

So we have allowed the emperor in,
expecting he will fix all the problems
on our list of who or what to blame.

He and his helpers now take
a sledge hammer to much of what is 
actually useful and important 
on a scale we have not imagined.

We must now take a peak at 
the bigger picture and
the destructive results 
as the numbers mount higher.

We must imagine what wrecks 
the lives of some of the people
will also affect the rest of us in ways
you must imagine now.

Before you begin to search for 
who and what to blame,
remember why you choose
a life in this country.

Remember that it's always been 
ideas and stories that inspired
what we imagine this country to be.

This current upheaval will no doubt
reshape our ideas of who we are
as a country. 

Let us direct our imagination 
to capture what's happening now 
so we can reimagine our way out.
Because of course we can.