Cocoon

for Sydney Jones, Asia Watch: Human Rights

hermitcrab

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