AFTER THE YEAR 2000

 Thanh-Thanh. Outstanding Poets of 1994.

  Maryland: National Library of Poetry, 1994.

After the year two thousand, we will be still alive,

And so will other animals and worms.

There still will be vegetables and germs,

And mundane life as ever, rain or shine.

Not the earth to stop revolving will tend,

Neither the seas to dry, nor the air to condense;

Each day will be a new one, not the last hence;

And the world – humanity – will face no end.

Wars will continue to erupt here and there

As an ordeal to test Man’s thirst for Peace.

Poverty, ignorance, and diseases will not cease

For egoism, greed, and cruelty will not care.

                                   *

But, anywhere on the globe, in any event,

There always will be conscience, common sense.

The elites still will vow the innocent’s defense,

For people to be safe, prosperous, and content.

We still will have much more progress to make

And many more stars to explore and win.

Having set safe the twenty-first century to begin,

We need self-reliance striving for our own sake.

                                       THANH-THANH