But I’m not feeling very funny right now –
not, anyway, in the sense of amused.
Or amusING. And I don’t think I have
any tales tall enough to top the reality,
the unbelievable reality of what’s going on
in the world right now.
Once upon a time
there was a race of creatures on this planet,
a species, I guess you’d say, that grew fast
and large – too large in the end for this earth
to encompass them. You think I mean dinosaurs?
No, I mean ourselves, breeding and breeding.
You see it with other animals. Overcrowding
leads to aggression; fights to the death. There
were all these experiments on rats…. Sometimes,
earth produces a plague or a famine to deal with
the burgeoning numbers. Sometimes that’s not
enough. Nowhere near.
This species became
so big that it blotted out the sun. Well, in a way.
Or perhaps it was the opposite. Anyway,
climate changed. (Oh, you’ve already heard
this impossibly tall tale?) A sudden plague,
which wiped out many, didn’t quite do the job.
Then the new wars began – even though
many of the species knew this was not
the way to a habitable planet, a safe space
to live out lives of harmony with nature.
The powerful didn’t care. Survival? I think
we haven’t a prayer.
[Also see revised version]
I've been combining prompts from NaPoWriMo and Poem A Day at Poetic Asides. Today, one was to tell a tall tale, the other to write something funny. Luckily both are optional. My pessimistic piece ended up veering to today's prompt in Rajani's April list at her Thoughtpurge blog: Prayer. (And I guess subverting that, too.)