Another poem from A Poem a Day which I thought was very appropriate for our time. It’s by one of my favourite novelists at one time -Marge Piercy. Some may call it overly polemical but it expresses such an important message about our role as writers, that I thought it was the right poem for this week. And who am I to criticise a polemical poet! This poem is from ‘The Crooked Inheritance’, published in 2006.

The Birthday of the World Marge Piercy

On the birthday of the world

I begin to contemplate

what I have done and left

undone, but this year

not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged

psyche, shoring up eroding

friendships, digging out

stumps of old resentments

that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I want to call

myself to task for what

I have done and not done

for peace. How much have

I dared in opposition?

How much have I put

on the line for freedom?

For mine and others?

As these freedoms are pared,

sliced and diced, where

have I spoken out? Who

have I tried to move? In

this holy season, I stand

self-convicted of sloth

in a time when lies choke

the mind and rhetoric

bends reason to slithering

choking pythons. Here

I stand before the gates

opening, the fire dazzling

my eyes, and as I approach

what judges me, I judge

myself. Give me weapons

of minute destruction. Let

my words turn into sparks.