Speak For Yourself

Warning. Red alert. Or at least maybe a burnt-umber alert. (I need to find out what umber is and who first burned to make that color.) Preachy poem ahead. Detour advised.

Can’t Complain, Am Concerned

Life provides me with assistance,
which includes oxygen, sunshine,
water, memory, blueberries, garlic,
recordings of Dinah Washington,
Rubenstein, and Johnny Cash,
cardamom, bookstores, a bed,
birds, and affection. Such largesse.

I’m wealthier than royalty
of previous eras, travel more
comfortably than Vikings,
Marco Polo, and Eisenhower.
I don’t have very much power,

one might allege,
but the same one might cite
my extraordinary American
imperial privilege.

Mere me, ordinary I: I
am one of the most expensive
people in history. I’ve worked,
but who hasn’t? There are a few,
I know, but for many, just
living is the hardest job of all.

A question of society
persists, is more than a
question of propriety:
how shall those who have
behave toward themselves
with regard to those who have
not or much less? Shall we bless
ourselves by making the
blessings go further, as a frugal person does
with what a frugal person has?
Or shall we condemn ourselves
by doing no good with having it good?

“Speak for yourself.” A fair point.
What is it I should
be doing to do the best with doing well?
is a question worth my asking myself.
"Shut up." Consider it done.

Hans Ostrom