The New Optimism

The recital of the new optimism

was oft interrupted, rudeness

in the ramparts, an injured raven

that needed attendance, pre-op

nudity. The young who knew everything

was new made babies who unforeseeably

would one day present their complaint.

Enough blame to go around but the new

optimism didn’t stop, helped one

pick up a brush, another a spatula

even as the last polar bear sat

on his shrinking berg thinking,

I have been vicious but my soul is pure.

And the new optimism loves the bear’s

soul and makes images of it to sell

at fair-trade craft fairs with laboriously

knotted hunks of rope, photos of cheese,

soaps with odd ingredients, whiskey,

sand, hamburger drippings, lint,

any and everything partaking of the glowing

exfoliating cleanup. And the seal

is sponged of oil spill. And the broken

man is wheeled in a meal. War finally

seems stupid enough. You look an animal

in the eye before eating it and the gloomy

weather makes the lilacs grow. Hello,

oceans of air. Your dead cat loves you

forever and will welcome you forever home.