They Call Me a Pessimist
They call me a pessimist
because
I look at mirrors and gaze not
at the surface of the glass
nor at its silver sheen
nor even at the images within.
No! I gaze through glass images,
to the greenery of life’s struggles
and joyous pain.
They call me a pessimist
because
I write poems about the bomb and the Holocaust,
about trodden dignity and dreary tyrants,
about anger and hate,
envy and disrespect,
misery and resentment,
being hated, and
striking back.
They dream dreams about birds cooing in trees,
and write poems about reconciliation.
I write about acorns thrusting forth
mighty forests,
about daily revulsion and hate
as the seeds of revolution and
rebirth.
They, too, live in misery, but
speak of it as roses;
I, too, live in misery, but
speak of it as revolt.
And they call me . . . a pessimist.