The Quest for Consensus
Wednesday, December 27, 2000
Trapped in individualist expression
simultaneously casting an anachronism;
Look in the mirror
and see what we think of progress.
The hardest part is a fear of finding more
Adolescence – separate, semi-impromptu vacations
and sexual honesty, and not being able to articulate
the attitudes and anxieties,
and the countless places visited each day,
with a popular expression.
A recovered memory of old chestnuts,
anonymous sex and the soul of winter;
new fans of the deceptive simplicity
in Zen thought for popular consumption
defy an unwilling earth
with rude little prods and jests.
At the end of the day,
there is ringing confirmation
of the innate desires, novelty and nubility –
the rewards, essential for survival.
Allie D’Augustine
The author is an English major in her junior year at the University of Pennylvania.
This is the second in a year-end series of commissioned poems.