International Day of Peace-Autumnal Equinox Eve—Murfin Verse

This is another one of the calendar poems inspired by random, or not so random, coincidences of dates, usually discovered as I am in a mad scramble for a blog entry topic.  It first appeared three years ago, but the calendar serendipity is annual.

Tomorrow will be the first day of Autumn but here in McHenry County it feels more like mid-summer this year with temps in the mid-80s and the humidity high so conditions are not just as they were described in the doggerel below. 

Today is the International Day of Peace, so proclaimed by the United Nations every year since 1982.  Since 2001 the date has been fixed to September 21 instead of the original third Tuesday of the month, which was also when the UN General Assembly begins its annual session. 

Among its grander visions which must have seemed distant even to the founders of the event, was at a call for an annual one day cease fire of on-going hostilities.  I can recall no armies ever standing down, but perhaps I missed something.

International Day of Peace/Autumnal Equinox Eve

September 21, 2013

The immanent equinox advertises itself

            this morning with crack crisp air,

            elderly maples beginning to rust at the crown,

            a touch of gold on borer doomed ashes,

            mums and marigolds,

            hoodies up on dog walkers in shorts,

            all under a prefect azure sky—

                        you know the one from the Sunday song

reminding “skies everywhere as blue as mine.”

The globe teeters on the edge of equanimity,

            ready to balance for an instant between night and day,

            seasons, yesterday and tomorrow,

            a perilous, promising, moment.

The poor creatures swarming over its surface,

            fancying ourselves somehow its masters,

            alas, bereft of any balance….

From the Wishful Thinking File,

            institutional division—

Festooned with doves and olive branches

            brave words on blue banners,

            a speech here, a lovely little vigil there,

            an earnest strumming of guitars,

            litanies sung, mantras chanted,

            kind hearts and gentle people…

The creatures go about our brutal business,

            blithely ignoring it all—

                        proclamation and equinox alike.

—Patrick Murfin