for Sydney Jones, Asia Watch: Human Rights
I stay in my tight cocoon
warm, snug and sheltered
from famines, war and strife
human rights violations
I watch you at your valiant job
in the asphalt jungle
teleconferencing across frontiers
being au courant with the latest events
in some far flung dictatorship
I am envious of you
the modern day Jeanne d’Arc
My domaine rests
with getting children places on time
school, music leassons, gym, swimming classes
cooking meals, dressing dinners
sorting out clothes, battling dust
mine is the mundane
that I am plotting,
dreaming,
awaiting,
fearing
metamorphosis
this cocoon is well spun
ordered,
silken nest
books lined on shelves
discussing, describing
the world without
exciting, inciting
the world within
an indolent world
so redolent of
a pampered expatriate existence
lotus eating
I am loath
to seek
lotus sitting
satori
this chrysalis
home and hearth
I cannot shed
bonded and bounden
my surviving abuse
for inaction/standstill
lax self discipline
like the hermit crab
scuttling with its borrowed shell
not showing its soft underbelly
in deadly fear of
exposure.
written in the 1990’s