AN ODE TO LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

And Billy hides his genius, and acts and dresses like his friends
For fear of seeming different the means will justify the ends.

The NRA sticks to its guns, Bush rolls back freedoms — ‘Red Alert!’ —
They terrorize us and exploit our morbid fear of being hurt.

Katrina cleans the house and clothes with germicides, her expertise
Is making sure the world is free from her great fear of strange disease.

Gerard works eighty hours a week, his job, his life a gaping void,
His lifelong dreams sad victims of his fear of being unemployed.

Joanna’s child stays close at hand, a microchip in his left ear,
As homage to her greatest dread: The fear of losing someone dear.

He cut down all the trees nearby and, locked inside, John spends his days–
His artificial universe, in fear of nature‘s savage ways.

When Karen’s husband beats her up, she thinks it’s her job to atone.
Her shame and grief the ghastly cost of fear of being left alone.

And all the while the chance of these things happening’s remote, or less —
The greater dangers we ignore, distracted by learned helplessness:
Pollution, global warming, wealth imbalance, population stress,
Injustice, power run amok, farm factories, the world’s oppressed.

And while we look the other way, extinction looms within the fog
Divert attention for too long and we become The Boiling Frog.