January 6, 2021: After the Storm

Carol Coffee Reposa

March 21, 2021

Poring over dailies,

Riveted to CNN

Endlessly replaying and rehashing,

I think of Yeats.

Here too things fall apart,

The center nowhere to be found

With broken glass everywhere,

The falconer missing in action.

Here too we see the best

Lack all conviction,

While the worst are full of Fox,

Newsmax, and bile.

After this, I can’t imagine

What shiny new gears

Would have to mesh,

What luminous new words

Some seer could intone,

What clean machine

Suddenly might descend

To sweep the rubble

From our streets and thoughts,

Clear the marble halls of trash

And send the rough beast

Slouching back to his swamp

Finally driving him

Out of Bethlehem

So that a savior

Somehow might be born.

Author of five books of poetry, Carol Coffee Reposa has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, along with three Fulbright/Hays Fellowships for study in Russia, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and of the Voices de la Luna editorial staff, she is the 2018 Texas Poet Laureate.