Sometimes I'm amazed

It's easy to live in a caccoon - in fact, I think most people do.  We talk to family and friends, we listen to the news we like, read the papers we like and don't get outside our comfort zone very often. Sometimes I think my comfort zone is wider than that of some although that probably only means I am more interested in more ideas and places than most people I know.  But, I have my own strong opinions and prefer to talk to people who mostly have the same political orientation.

So I do not delve into opinions about the Boston marathon bombing much but I'm a little shocked that the subject has come up seldom in the last few days.  A friend attuned to international terrorism told me rather early on he thinks this was a domestic event, a disgruntled or "crazy" person. He had good reasons to say that and more or less convinced me.  I've just heard of another kind of "crazy" group who say the whole thing was done by our government as was the fertilizer plant explosion. I cannot imagine what twisted logic would  make anyone think such a thing.  I would criticize the government for various reasons (like the current gun legislation fiasco) but such anti-government sentiment appalls me.

My own reaction was to decide to read a poem I wrote over four years ago about the New York City marathon which I was always acutely aware of because I frequently  saw individuals and teams training. To me people running for the joy of running has an archetypical sense -- didn't we all do that as children, just to see how fast we could go?   I read the poem in my poetry class this week although I'd written a cheery one about the coming of spring.  I was the only person, among over 20 contemporaries who had been moved enough by the bombing to address the subject - that surprised me.  They are all sensitive, thoughtful people, but living in their own caccoons.

The Marathon

They run
        By the thousands
        Through the canyons
        Over the bridges
       Through the  park.
       News cameras took down from helicopters.
       People look out tall windows
        Lean over high balconies
        Line the crowded streets.
They run
        Like the bison once ran over the Badlands
        The wildebeast still run through the savannahs
         Fabled lemmings run over cliff into the eas
        Heroes ran the mountains in ancient Attica.
As they run
        Many thousand feet pound softly
        Their breathing is a mass sigh in a city
        Accustomed to sirens' screams.
       The crowds' cheers drift softly to the sky
       Newscasters' chatter circles the globe.
They have been running
       Alone or in packs or two or three or a few
       for months, years.  They leave
       behind home, wife, husband, children.
       Silece is enough for many,
      So search for "the zone."
They run
      To win, or beat a record, or follow heroes.
      To prove something, "because it's there,"
      "To do it once."
      To be, this one day, lost in the herd,
      Part of something big and beautiful,
      Massive and magnificent.
      Independent individuals
      Who trained an paid and stayed the course.