There’s a 42 year old monument in Georgia
that gives instructions in 8 languages
for how to rebuild society after an undefined
apocalyptic event, because who can guess
the ways we’ll invent to destroy ourselves—
implosion or explosion decisions often
changing depending on your present
company. Play—the act of play—contributes
more to societal advancement than any
military thing ever has, but thanks for
the rockets, the Internet, & LGBTQ tolerance
before much of the rest of society. Yet
the opposite of military is not poetry,
& the opposite of play isn’t work. It’s
depression. And true belonging is not
about who you are to fit into a particular
group; it’s about being authentically
vulnerable & still being accepted by
that group. Like a limestone monument
in the bokeh background of the foreground
DC cherry blossoms, the center of power
rising from a literal swamp, strength
often confused as vulnerability’s
antonym, the cure for loneliness not
more plotting, but likely more listening.
Not everything needs to be a coup d’état.
Those Georgia-Post-Society-Guidestones
also function as a clock, compass, & calendar.
Sorry. Wrong verb tense. Functioned, as
last year, the monument was blown apart
by a vandal, granite shards everywhere—
too much to rebuild, in a way Ozymandias
wouldn’t appreciate. Please stop mistaking
one idea as an explainer for how the entire
world actually works. Spoiler alert: in
Planet of the Apes, we’re the real apes,
& the first step toward societal acceptance
is not external industry. No, instead it’s—