What Are You Doing About This?

Just as you experience
These words, these moments just past,

However the encounter
Has occurred, is occurring,

Whether you know our language
A little, a lot, or not,

There’s somewhere on the planet
Something sublimely gorgeous

Is going on, and elsewhere,
Right now, lives are suffering.

Proximity predicts most
Of how you feel about this.

No one nearby wants to miss
Rainbows over Uluru,

Auroras over Iceland.
No one under falling bombs

Or hearing screams from the tents
As the forest fire rips through

Feels contented where they are—
But there’s a middle distance,

And then further and further,
Where the fear of missing out

And the horror at the pain
Attenuate together,

And it takes a photograph
Or a documentary,

Or at least an article,
To generate the longing

And the agony of not
Doing something about it.

So how much are you missing
Or permitting to happen

You shouldn’t, hopeless person,
While encountering this poem?