.

Sunday Morning While
the World Burns

Another something, somewhere, every day
Perturbs the practised calm of her routine.
Those sad reflections on the fractured screen
Of tragedy ten thousand miles away
Deface the morning’s promise with dismay
And make its dull demands seem so obscene.

She’s running late: the guests are due at noon
To talk about the weather, work, and whether rain
Will spoil their long weekend. It’s all a strain;
Her famous pumpkin pie seems so jejune
As uninvited visions importune,
And twist anticipation to disdain.

Today a Belgian woman was convicted
Of poisoning her newborn son with bleach
And sharing all his sufferings to leech
Small sympathies from lonely thumbs addicted
To dopamine and miseries inflicted
Upon unfortunates well out of reach.

Each story feeds a creeping, formless fear
Which squats upon the crisp, conditioned air.
Trembling, she skins the gourd, all too aware
Of the distraction waiting somewhere near
And how the mundane world might disappear.
At last she bows her head, but not in prayer.

Two dozen dire events slip through her gaze:
Another deadly, airborne pestilence,
Another outrage against innocence,
Another promise of the end of days,
And soon the hour’s lost inside a maze
Of accidents she cannot influence.

This three-dimensioned world is an intrusion
Upon a pixelated fog more real
Than life, and it becomes a drab ordeal
Without the comfort of a shared delusion
Or the transcendence found inside confusion,
Forever turning on that boundless wheel.

Yet this sensation leaves her strangely numb
To all but the oblique anxiety
Of Being severed from ubiety,
Until at last the spell is overcome:
The knife slips, slicing deep into her thumb
And all is drenched with bright sobriety.

For one brief moment all the world’s distress
Contracts into a single scarlet tear.
The pain, so crystalline and so sincere
In its immediacy, cuts through the mess
Of thought and as her heartaches evanesce
A sanguine truth is found to persevere.

This brief apocalypse makes all too clear
The lies which coddle her unhappiness
But, summoning the strength to acquiesce,
She calls the revenants to reappear
And, clutching all the hurt which she holds dear,
She hides behind the glass to convalesce.

Out in the yard meanwhile, the children play
Their awful games. With solemn care they ply
A magnifying glass to fold the sky
Into a thin, incendiary ray,
Bringing to bear the naked force of day
Upon an ant a whim decreed must die.

The tiny insect bears a scrap of bread
In its strong jaws, a tribute for its queen.
This unsuspecting, dutiful machine
Is briefly bathed in light—and then it’s dead.
The children laugh but, growing bored, soon head
Inside to find more fun before the screen.

But in the grass, the ants’ heroic fight
Against the elements and life’s cruel crop
Goes ever on. They have no time to stop
And mourn their lot for clouds draw close to smite
The earth, but in their nest, where all is night,
They might find refuge when the heavens drop.

.

.

Shaun C. Duncan is a picture framer and fine art printer who lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

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18 Responses

  1. Paul Freeman

    An amazingly poignant poem, especially when we switch perspective from the depressingly overwhelming macro world of ‘humanity’ to the practicalities of the micro world of the ant.

    Thanks for the read, Shaun.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you for the kind remark, Paul. I must credit Evan for his help with the ending – I rushed it a bit the first time round and I think the intent was a little vague as a result. I’m glad to hear the revision worked!

      Reply
  2. jd

    Seems a masterful poem to me, Shaun. Prayer would be a cure for the lady, I think (you seem to say that mid-poem), but her distress is artfully chronicled and appreciated by a congregant from a St. Adelaide’s parish in the U.S.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you, JD. Godlessness is a secondary but important theme within the poem and you’ll find bits and pieces of Christian imagery and terminology scattered through it.

      I didn’t know there was a St. Adelaide – I’ll have to look her up!

      Reply
  3. Cynthia Erlandson

    “For one brief moment all the world’s distress / Contracts into a single scarlet tear.” — and the rest of that verse — especially the way the knife “cuts through the mess” after it has slipped — is is very visually descriptive (as is the poem as a whole). The phrase “The lies which coddle her unhappiness” is very insightful. I think this is a very psychologically compelling poem.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you, Cynthia. It was a struggle to articulate the kind of weird psychological states which result from smartphone addiction, particularly the way people become conditioned to seek comfort in misery, I’m very glad to hear that stanza was effective.

      Reply
  4. Monika Cooper

    A rich, textured, and immersive poem. These lines:

    The knife slips, slicing deep into her thumb
    And all is drenched with bright sobriety.

    The reader sees red immediately without the color being named. Also love the line about the children folding the sky with the magnifying glass. It’s all very unsentimental about women and children.

    I wonder if you intended it as a response to Wallace Stevens’s Sunday Morning? A Sunday morning at yet another remove from the tradition of church-going. But the woman in this poem is nevertheless still going through the motions of a traditional American ritual: pie-making. And it brings her into unexpected contact with non-virtual reality. The sight of blood and the sudden pain ambush her. C. S. Lewis I remember said there’s nothing like a genuine pleasure or pain to snap us out of the unreal.

    Also the ants at the end are wonderful: “their nest, where all is night. . .”. As the Book of Proverbs also observes, we have something to learn from them.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you for the kind remarks, Monika. Yes, the title is intended to evoke Stevens’ poem which, with its heralding of a kind of pagan future in which modernist poets would replace priests, seems absurd a century on now that we have TikTok and the daily outrage cycle.

      I’m not familiar with that C.S. Lewis quote, but the bits and pieces I have read of his work have certainly influenced my understanding of the role of suffering in human life. There’s nothing like a short, sharp pain to bring back into the present and I’ve noticed the kind of people who are the most invested in virtual drama tend to live very comfortable, sheltered lives – unlike the ants, who have real and very immediate problems to contend with.

      Reply
  5. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Shaun, your meticulously crafted poem, steeped in symbolism and vivid imagery, is evocative of this dystopian, mind-numbing age of relativism, where only the sharp sting of real pain puts things into perspective. Your words speak to my heart… and they hurt like hell. The stark reality in the plight of tortured ants speaks of the horror humanity witnesses… while turning a blind eye. Your words are so powerful, they scare me – all the hallmarks of fine writing. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you so much for this generous comment, Susan. I’m glad the poem had an emotional impact – I’d worried that my treatment was maybe a little too clinical and that the tone might come off as cold or even condescending.

      Reply
      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Shaun, you have managed to hit exactly the right note for me, and I applaud you for it. I believe many have been desensitized to the God-given gifts of this “mundane world” through constant fearmongering, and the result is as tragic as the stark, well-woven words of your eye-opening poem. Your writing never fails to impress and inspire me. Thank you!

  7. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Through your psychologically numbing imagery of pain, suffering and death, life continues somehow unabated. I have never felt so much angst for one single ant before disturbing my senses.

    Reply
  8. C.B. Anderson

    I loved the rhyme scheme, Shaun, and I am in awe of the detail you provided layer after layer. This is what a serious poem should look like. I get the feeling that you have been studying Stephen Edgar.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you, C.B. I must admit I was not familiar with Stephen Edgar, but after reading a few of his poems online I think I will have to study his work a bit closer. Being Australian, I might even be able to find one of his books down here!

      Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    Shaun, in the Wallace Stevens “Sunday Morning” (which I admire as a masterful poem), the woman desperately tries to craft a spiritual individuality for herself, and thus becomes a figure of Eve hearing the serpent tell her she can be a god. In your “Sunday Morning,” she shrinks, still denying God His due worship, but seemingly desperate to escape any spiritual search. The tone is quite serious, and though not sympathetic to the central figure, neither cold nor clinical. You as narrator managed to hold her at just the right distance. She’s not an ant to be treated as her children treat real ants. Maybe I could say that without overtly pitying her, you show potential for pity and encourage readers to have the same response to those whom we see in the same condition.

    You must have taken great care with the plot of this story that is no story. It’s easy to follow. Rhyme and rhythm are expertly done, which makes me wonder whether you really intended line 8 to have 6 beats. The poem would be perfect pentameter if you made it, “To talk about their work, and whether rain.” The suggestion also cuts out some repetition but keeps what is meaningful. The poem’s ending is a worthy contrast to the Stevens ending, so our competent editor Evan made an important contribution to this excellent piece.

    Reply

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