The Golden Fiddle

The screech of a violin fills the air, effectively silencing the discordant background noise.  A reddish glow spreads across the horizon.  The approaching flickering light casts twisting shadows as the musician sways maniacally from side to side in time with the music of his own creation.  He takes no notice of the increasing temperature and plays on with greater passion.  The world will soon be rebuilt in his image.  Rome is burning.  We are all Nero.

The contemplation of this disturbing image is the main objective of poem XXXV in Emily Johnston’s Her Animals.  Perhaps this is an important objective of the entire book.  Johnston’s Her Animals, perhaps a poetry collection, perhaps an essay on the impending destruction of mankind, offers a very bleak picture of our future.  Even darker is the portrayal of human society, and our exploitive relationship with the earth. 

Nero’s “golden fiddle” is ever present in our lives, appearing on all our screens, and taking a position of leadership at the podium (Johnston XXXV).  The sound is our contented distraction.  “It drowns out the wailing; it drowns out the cries; it drowns out the drilling and clear-cutting…” Johnston writes (XXXV).  Our contented distraction comes at a price.  Our lifestyle is supported by the destruction of the earth, the using up of limited resources. 

This is not all.  Our contented distraction “drowns out the heartbeats silenced: the chirrups, the hums, the rustles, the snuffles, the squeaks” (XXXV).  How many species are on the endangered list?  How many will go extinct this year?  All to support a few more years of our contented distraction.

Is our downfall inevitable?  What can we really do? Recycle, conserve water and power, drive less, hug a tree…  All small steps.  Of course, we must start somewhere.  Give up our car, move to a cabin in the woods, go off the grid… Bigger steps, but not always practical or possible for the modern person.  Does it really make a difference?  Perhaps if everyone made even a few small changes.  But they are too busy being contentedly distracted.  What can we really do?  How do we wake people up and get them to join in?  Tell our friends, join environmental groups, march on Washington, write a letter to the Times, call people names, shout until we lose our voices…  Rome is already on fire.  Time is running out. 

Works Cited

Johnston, Emily. Her Animals. Seattle: Hummingbird Press, 2015. Print.