Poem: She Suggests I Should Ignore The News for Today

She Suggests I Should Ignore The News for Today

I am too agitated, she says, I should take a break,
it is not any good to be upset, is not helping,
and she may be right, perhaps I need a distance,
need to step back for today, but
I do not know, am worried
the world has so much, is fast,
each day seems more, each time
it is already too far, already a stack
that sways above,
more is piled, it grows,
the balance is precarious,
will go to one side or another,
crash, boom, all the way down,
this way or that, and each day
there is more, and not looking?
It is not clear what good it does,
each day for so long now has come
leaping out, has been filled, has brought tears,
daily tears, for strangers whose names a better world
would not have to remember, and that is not only one thing,
is not true here, but is true in all the directions that I can look,
and it may be better that I don't look, today, she may be right,
but I am not sure I can, it is too important, even if it hurts,
it is not so easy to look away knowing what is then ignored.

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