The psychologist Erik Erikson proposed there are eight stages of psychosocial development across a human's life span. As I have argued, cultures and civilizations pass through the same psychosocial stages as an individual. The final stage in Erikson's analysis is "Ego Integrity versus Despair." Individuals enter this stage at about age 65. America and much of the rest of the world appear to have pinballed through the earlier stages and are now trapped in the despair antipode. With that background I offer this poem on the last day of January, 2020.
Star Man
Despair
Despair incinerates the skies above Australia
Despair irradiates the waters off Fukushima
Despair melts the glaciers of Greenland
Despair lies to the American people
Despair cuts medical coverage for pre-existing conditions
Despair erects a useless wall across America's southern border
Despair sprays Round-up on vegetable crops
Despair infects 7,000 Chinese with coronavirus
Despair rapes girls in India and Africa
Despair impregnates 360,000 women per day world-wide
Despair denies global climate change
Despair cancels social security benefits
Despair starves immigrants to death
Despair murders Amazon activists trying to protect the mato grosso
Despair tortures logic
Despair reduces taxes on the billionaire class
Despair abuses wives and girlfriends and children
Despair bombs Afghani wedding parties
Despair prays for the End Times
Despair poisons the drinking water of the nation
Despair fracks sacred monuments
Despair obliterates protections for rivers and the atmosphere
Despair suicides 123 Americans per day
Despair shoots children and their mothers
Despair votes against having witnesses in the impeachment trial
Despair weeps for the destruction of our home planet