ADHD: climate change?

how to care about what matters

difference attracts us,

and repels us,

we can get bored by familiarity,

and terrified by surprise,

I sit in the woods and wait,

I want to feel the gestalt of what is,

so that then I can notice a change,

I often hope for a bear to visit,

a pileated woodpecker to land nearby,

the wild turkeys to fly in or wander near,

that same alertness can ready me to notice a threat,

birds know the potential of their death

in every anxious swivel of their heads,

our progenitors must have, like the birds, known

that death could suddenly visit their world,

paranoia can keep us alive, or haunt our dreams,

a kid these days can be diagnosed with ADHD,

a hyper-active attention to everything around them,

however, we reward focus on the task before us,

and penalize those too alert 

to what’s outside the moment and the task,

how ironic that a generation that can need help dealing with ADHD

also notices the real threats to our future

that lurk just outside what we want to care about.

by Henry H. Walker

April 4, ‘19