At the end of July, the flies arrived en masse. Not knowing what to do / to deal with the problem, simply made matters worse. Was it the summer heat / that offered a refuge within our apartment to flies and cockroaches, / hungry for the refuse of feces and vomit from the cats we care for, / except these are symptoms of some undiagnosed problem we call clutter, / everywhere, piles of books, bags of no longer worn clothing, knitting supplies, / needless, empty boxes, the detritus of life lived without a future, / determined to make things better, I have moments of clearing out debris, / only to spend more time on getting rid of stuff than the novel I write / for posterity's sake, as if my legacy were meaningful for all. /
July is the hottest month here in Chicago, but each year is different, / unusual climate developments over decades has changed our world, / leaving us to battle absurdity of past decisions by people / you may not remember who took part in the care of our nation with coal. /
To imagine a world without difficulties is in itself absurd, / however compounded our problems may appear, solutions are at hand, / even though, our actions to resolve such problems with clear, decisive steps / flies in the face of dreams, our homes crumble and burn under the weight of time, / left to sift through ashes for relics of lives lost, mementos of our past, / incredibly, we hope to find some reminder to cling to while sorrow / evens out the playing field, maybe we had more than others, but now, no, / suffering the unknown around each blind corner, we watch earth fall apart. /
August brings the cool air, we tumble into fall, summer is now over, / restless children await returning to school books, to classrooms and teachers, / running around with friends on playgrounds soft with grass, even in the city, / if I'm an outsider without pride or ego as I did not grow up, / very much, if at all, in Hyde Park, the South Side, but am just a transplant, / entering Chicago from Memphis, Tennessee, where I went to college, / determined to make time for myself and others to heal from childhood scars. /
Even Huntington Beach, where I grew up was hot as a desert at times, / not to undermine facts but we had the ocean as a source of cool air. /
Murder in Chicago seems to happen much more when everyone's outside, / as Coronavirus took over our small world, we hid indoors in fear, / sickness, disease, and death became our obsession to overcome, devour, / simply to spite our fears, to deal with the drama, other people dying, / entering hospitals for minor aches and pains became a bad idea. /
No one knows the future, historians address the past with agendas, / obvious, in hindsight, biases and beliefs, that influence others, / the children who read books voraciously but don't question authority. /
Kindness is a movement, recently developed, from ancient unread books, / now I know not to kill but to let be, let live, insect populations, / of course, I drown roaches as I shower, the heat from hot water stuns them, / whether or not they die because I splash water to force them down the drain / is an act of karma may seem absurd to some but I am Indian, / not growing up Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Buddhist, but Roman Catholic, / gave me some perspective from other Indians who live in India. /
Whenever a problem arises as effect it is necessary, / however unlikely counterintuitive thinking allows people / as ordinary folk to view, say, homelessness as an effect of change, / the neglect of people over time, like interest, compounds problems yearly. /
The flies and cockroaches are an effect of things I've neglected to do, / of course, keep a clean house, one could say I'm lazy, or overwhelmed by things, / despite this opinion, it won't get to the root of the problem at hand, / of murder as effect of a social problem...just ask the governor. //
