is there time to do the things i want to do? is there time before the world changes to see my children grow to men? will there be time for joy? time for peace? i exist under the weight of uncertainty and anxiety. i fear the pressing in of global change, of the world reduced from this mess to nearly nothing. i hear the reports - that the eleventh hour is upon us, yet see no decisive action really taken. i stand with many in my dissent, but many more are silent. there are moments in my day when excitement and ideas reach me, when i think of things that i might do. then trouble clenches tight my heart, and i grow silent and still, melancholic inaction taken its hold around me. all happiness is strangled out. my throat tightens in mid-sentence, the ideas stalled by dread. is there time yet to put into action what good i want to do? is it useless to sit troubling over whether i am good enough or not, when the world i seek to create for may soon not exist? my hands do not write, do not paint, do not stitch. my hopes that i have, the visions of my future and the future of my sons and family seem so improbable. what use is it to try? i am weighed down by my own negativity. i cannot escape the crushing fear that before me is nothing.