Pause for poetry:
Michael Hawkes /17

Everyman an Island

A poem by Michael Hawkes

Every man is an island
When all is said and Donne.
Take no comfort from the myth.

Some circled by a golden strand,
Basking in the sun,
Are isolated by their bounty
From every other one.

Other rocky outposts
Defended by their cliffs,
Rebuke the surging sea of life,
Renounce the jetsam of its gifts
To stand alone as monoliths
And brave what ‘ere may come.

One may be in paradise
While neighbors suffer hell,
Like migrant bergs of arctic ice
Locked in a tropic swell,
In a world of drifting islands
Where human beings dwell.

* * * * *

Old hands relish island life
And know wherewith they stand;
They cherish the duality, the controversy,
The flotsam of reality,
The randomness of certainty
Where ocean meets the land.

6/12/20 – Hawkes

Feature image: Tom Collins via StockPholio.net

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