©Phoebe Duncan
January 3, 2001

The Situation As I Know It

There is a word I know—
Shalom
Peace be with you
—That no one else knows
It is my little secret

The world never knew it
Or maybe it has forgotten
Hide in your small rooms
With curtains drawn across the pretty windows
Shut your eyes to the horrors outside

We don’t like the newspapers
Except those lucky people
Who read with their eyes closed—
I envy them
—If they are people at all

Humans are a mutant race
Half of us blind
Half of us deaf
Half of us mute
Too many halves to our strange peoples
They overlap but no one knows that
Except me, shhhhhh
I have lots of secrets

It’s a scary place—
The world I mean
—Because the blind ones have
The deaf ones in the sights of their rifles
And the deaf ones have
The mute ones’ stomping footsteps in their ears
And the mute ones have
The blind ones hanging onto their every word
What a mad mad world this is

A mad scary dangerous dirty world this is
Someday we all think it will shatter
Crouching waiting for our doomsday
But it broke long ago—
I alone know
—Just cracked rubbish at our feet

Bend down just far enough
And pick up the shards carefully
Hear the soft sound the dust makes—
It whispers shalom
Peace be with you
—As you gently wipe it off the world