Humilitas
And does he have the shoulders
For the world, and shall
We place a wheel and turtle
Under him as well
Maybe add a hazelnut
The world on an axis,
On a pin
Where angels dance
And wait for orders
To Megiddo and apocalypse
And is everything so fragile
A speck of virus brings us down
Remembering that vanity
Leads us to the feet of Ozymandias
One day
Maybe today
And should Atlas need some help
Before his feet have slipped
And all the foundation
Maybe what we have in orbit
Could help
If not, we might also
Ask what we are doing there
I’ve left off
The marks, signs
Of use and abuse,
Because they stand
As statement, too
There is a quality should save us,
If we understand
Its works
It doesn’t mean stop everything
Or ball up into fetal uselessness
In fact, it calls for greater
Energy and effort
That simply will not pay
The same
But will save the fragile, spinning Earth
Of us
And all we’ve done to
Knock it off its pinions
And platforms
And should it have a course
To meet faces of other worlds
And the face of God,
Should all or any have us
C L Couch
Photo by GMB Monkey on Unsplash
Chin-Up on Rings
clcouch123 
July 3, 2020 at 9:48 am
AMAZING WORK
July 4, 2020 at 5:15 pm
Thank you so much!
July 3, 2020 at 7:09 pm
Powerful and evocative words! “A speck of virus brings us down” — you’d think all the arrogance would be gone, but alas… We have to do better and be better to rebuild. Change and clarity sometimes arrives wearing a mask.
July 8, 2020 at 8:08 pm
I was conditioned to be arrogant, and it’s taken many years to find something else (humility) and make it stick. Not that I’m an example of anything, because I’m not. But I appreciate the peace that comes with humility, and than we are also–as you say–“better to rebuild.” Goodness, I hadn’t thought about the irony of masks! This should be a time of change, and the masks are an emblem of it.
July 10, 2020 at 4:52 am
Great self-awareness. Self-awareness is the best! I’ve had a lot of time to think and unpack things I was struggling with during this pandemic. It brought me many awarenesses. One day it occurred to me…sometimes clarity arrives wearing a mask.
July 11, 2020 at 5:30 am
It’s a helpful insight and a timely one, since we have the masks to wear literally and to deal with emotionally.
July 3, 2020 at 7:49 pm
Knowing what we have to do is the big question. Most of us seem not to, or hesitate, and leave it to the ones with the big shoulders to barge their way to the front and do what they insist needs doing. We maybe need to grow bigger shoulders.
July 11, 2020 at 5:32 am
We grow bigger shoulders, then we can bear our world on our own. That sounds promising. Maybe a problem with the story is that Atlas holds the world by himself. What if we all put our shoulders to it?
July 11, 2020 at 4:00 pm
The Greeks obsessed with big strong men with superpowers. Yes, if everybody helped and everybody took a little of the credit, and we stopped thinking that big strong men with superpowers were the natural leaders…
July 11, 2020 at 7:04 pm
Wouldn’t that be just? We’re two millennia and a half later, and we should be be a little smarter. Broader, taller men should not be slated inexorably to rule.