Breakfast

As I ate my pancakes this morning,

I thought

In the nineteen eighties there was a big scare about

Bombs

That maybe

One would set the world ablaze with an apocalypse

(I lived in Canada

On a farm

And i think i remember the tv being on

And having military on screen

We didn't watch much tv

It might have been cuba

As my mother folded laundry

In the farmhouse)

I had Maple syrup on my pancakes today

I remember the scares

Terror

Death

Kids stay inside

I remember the turn of the century

Bunker down

They said

Even though nothing happened

Not to say that nothing has

They say that our society is consumeristic

It's probably more so than the history of mankind put together

But then again

We have technology

Improving moving

Plastics and oil. Computers and landfills.

I don't begrudge

It's just

I had maple syrup on my pancakes.

There are men that we are told to be afraid of

Or men that we're supposed to hate

Or races that we're supposed to dissengage with

Or sects who we disregard.

I'm not proposing much

Its just,

I had maple syrup this morning

Be careful or your frail body will fall victim to danger

Stay under the shelter of your knowledge

I hear the president has an "end the world now" button

In his office

And that the Pope has a direct phone line to God

I hear that DNA has been mapped by supercomputers

and that someone cloned a sheep

But I sit back

And have to laugh

Because i have maple syrup on my pancakes.