Hi, guys. I had given some thought to a post talking about Geb, the earth god, and Ma’at on Earth Day – it does happen to be the New Moon today, and I had promised to carry on the “Making Ma’at” tradition into this year, so I was going to do rite, and maybe post about it…and then something happened, something that I’m not ready to write about specifically. So let me just post a poem of mine from back when I was a member of Big Bend Poets and Writers, a Tallahassee group of – you guessed it – poets and writers.

Man, it would be so easy for me to be fake with you guys, and go on and on about Ma’at and how we are really screwing it up with the planet, etc. But I have to be real with you guys, or at least as real as I can manage.

The prompt that resulted in this poem was “Write about your concept of the ideal city.” So suffering a stunning lack of imagination on titles that day, I called it “The Ideal City.” Here it is. Hope you enjoy.

 

The Ideal City

 

What is the ideal city?

How do you describe it?

 

I know what I prefer:

We live on two acres

in Wakulla County.

We bought a beautiful house

thirteen years ago

and are fortunate enough

to still be here.

 

But.

There is always a “but.”

 

We call ourselves

“Environmentalists.”

My husband drives

Twenty-five miles

to work every day.

In one direction.

That’s a lot of gas.

 

We like it in our house,

on our beautiful land.

But

 

There will come a day

When not everyone can have

A home of their own.

It’s bad for the planet.

 

We have few neighbors,

And it only gets loud

On the Fourth of July,

or New Year’s Eve.

We like the quiet.

 

But.

 

If you live in the city

you use less gas.

Everything is close by.

 

We have decried growth.

So many times, “growth”

is another word for

“business comes first, and the environment be damned.”

 

An attitude we are starting to pay the price for.

 

You can see it in our storms,

in their ferocious intensity,

storm after storm,

massive flooding everywhere.

 

But.

 

People need jobs.

They need to earn money,

they need to eat food,

they need to buy clothes,

they need to survive.

 

What is the answer?

Few speak of balance.

Can there be such a thing?

 

Yet that’s what we need.

 

Copyright 2018 Louise Pare-Lobinske.