Millennium Notes

For those of us on the edge of things,
listening to the dopplered panic
of distant sirens, and watching 30-second
grabs of frenetic living for today
by a generation celebrating life
and the survival of a billion hard drives,

it is easy to forget that a previous
generation lived that way too, when
they thought tomorrow would be lost
in the crash of ICBMs that never flew
and the slow death of nuclear winters
that never came. And their parents

danced through the crashing of bombs
that actually fell, and the burning of cities
that actually burned, while one generation
threw a party because tomorrow had arrived
after all, and who would have expected it after
the long lists of the dead, and the endless
marching into the guns.

Living on the edge of things, it is easy
to forget that each generation embraces
its now until the mundane reality of tomorrow
and the growing weight of yesterday
strand them on the edge of things, where
30-second grabs, and the sound of fading
sirens, shape their views.


Dennis Greene (Western Australia)