Affliction

AFFLICTION? It is said of young physicians when they first set out to learn All the symptoms and conditions that known illnesses convey They perceive these indications each one causing more concern ‘Til they make the diagnosis to their shock and their dismay They arrive at the conviction They themselves have the affliction Now when learned academics write a thesis that proclaims All white people are infected with a racism endemic Filled with symptom and with signs supporting dogma that defames Fragile folk are then persuaded by this plausible polemic And arrive at the conviction We’re all guilty of affliction What could be more direful to survival of this blessed sphere Than wild nature, once benign, by human feckless acts betrayed! “See the wild fires, melting icebergs and the hurricanes!”- we hear Computer forecasts yet sole factors we can truly call ‘man made’ Should we therefore have conviction Of a terminal affliction? Data now in a profusion never seen before these times Flood our eyes and ears and minds in ‘monu-mental’ mind-bate range Those with focussed strong agenda choose a menu that defines And steers us, if undiscerning and from reason then estranged To unquestioning conviction THAT in truth would be affliction