Regime Change

Author note: This is an entry into Kayleigh Fraser's "One of Us" challenge, found here- https://shopping-feedback.today/writers/one-of-us-unofficial-poetry-challenge.

The contest requires you to write a poem that includes the line "if tomorrow starts without me." While many interpreted this as death, I found myself wondering instead about the cold, scary feeling of the modern world moving away from everything that has been familiar to you.

If tomorrow starts without me,

if the dawn shines its angular light

so it keeps me in the shadow of yesterday,

will I burn my convictions

to keep from shivering

until the flames let loose

and scour the new shoots

being nurtured by the new generation’s sun?

Can my children, my grandchildren

see me

huddled in the dark,

blinded by the supernova of

new technologies

new ideas

new priorities?

When I wrap nostalgia and tradition

tighter around me

am I camouflaged within

the trash that they

are trying to jettison?

Are they trapped within the gravity

of a supernova

moving too fast

to see me

when they click delete?

Here in the yesterday-night

demagogues sell revolutions

and claim that force of will

can turn the planet backward,

shift the curve of time

and funnel the sun’s grace

to warm and nurture

only

the blessed, privileged few.

If I let go

of the funhouse mirrors

that distort the world around me

as they reflect morning rays

over the dim horizon

where we are entrenched

will the unadulterated skies

fill with the guiding glimmer

of starlight?

Can I see the constellations

That will guide me eastward

and remind me that

morning is a cycle

and

their dawn is my setting sun?

Will I have the faith

with this knowledge

to traverse a new ocean

and find the opposite horizon

where my own

transformation

and new light awaits?