"Prophecitis"  -  a Ballad for a possible Future

by Lianne Olive Hennig  

The cave that I live in is dank, dark and small
But, thank life, say I, that I have one at all,
For thousands are homeless and wander the plains,
And scratch for their food and long for the rains;
But my cave is cool in a land that is hot,
And set high in the hills where the winds blow a lot,
Far from the air of the plains where disease is so close,
And the will to survive is a battle, for most.

When I was a child, I heard the prophets.
The seers and the sages, in singsong, would call:
Doom and destruction is future promise!
But few people would stop and listen at all…

But life sees me blessed, for they pilgrimage here ~
The fittest and strongest set their gifts down, with fear.
To them, I am strange, and in league with the night,
Yet the sustenance they bring helps me live, eremite;
And so I am free of the husk of disease,
And the light in my mind gives them knowledge with ease,
For once did I doctor the sick and the low
In buildings of glass in a time long ago.

When I was a child, I heard the prophets.
The seers and the sages, in singsong, would call:
Doom and destruction is future promise!
But few people would stop and listen at all…

Long ago I used potions which now are not found.
Now I make do with the herbs of the ground ~
The herbs that are scrabbled from plants nearly dead ~
The plants with which their sick children are fed;
And I bring them awe through the stories I tell them,
Legends of cities with people that fly,
Tales of the voice that traversed through the air ~
But the truth, I knew of, just passes them by.

When I was a child, I heard the prophets.
The seers and the sages, in singsong, would call:
Doom and destruction is future promise!
But few people would stop and listen at all…

Now my body is aged and my time must be near,
And memories make me tremble with fear…
I have nightmares occur of that time, now so old,
And the guilt that they leave turns my bones cold.
For I’d lived in those times and I let my life drift ~
Not with politics, nor war, would I let my mind shift;
Conservation and economy left me far behind
So that, finally, I fell into the “mass people” bind…

When I was a child, I heard the prophets.
The seers and the sages, in singsong, would call:
Doom and destruction is future promise!
But few people would stop and listen at all…

Our resources were used for "big" business gain.
The small revolutionary was held in disdain.
War games were played with no thought to the costs,
So that now do we live in nuclear composts.
Yes, nuclear composts and yet many survive,
But half of us don’t know that they are alive
And, if they did know, they’d rather be dead
Than live in this limbo our Ignorance has bred…

When I was a child, I heard the prophets.
The seers and the sages, in singsong, would call:
Doom and destruction is future promise!
But few people would stop and listen at all…