Plan B

When I was a child my father
a self-educated man born at the turn of
the 20th century in Poland and an orphan
by the time he was twelve, told me
that there would come a time when
the world would be as one with no
differentiation between 'races'
when equality would prevail so there
would be no reason for conflict between
nations and peace would prevail. As it
happened he also felt that the Soviet
Union represented a template for
badly needed universal social change
toward a better world. This is what
he believed, home-spun intellectual
and philosopher. Still a child I exulted
when news came of Stalin's death.
My father died before John Lennon 
sang 'Give Peace a Chance'. Since
then neither my father's prophecy
nor Lennon's appeal have risen to
reality and I have lived much longer
than my father and John Lennon
observing humankind's inability and
unwillingness to becalm its self
destructive impulses wreaking horror
upon horror in mass atrocities to leave
the sphere upon which we depend
deep in blood and tears while searching
assiduously for extraterrestrial life.