After December 21, 2012
We had run out of days
and no desk calendar remained
to tear off pages and predict the future.
The lost planet of the Sumerians did not crash
into the Mall of America as the Mayan’s predicted.
Judgment Day turned out to be an incompetent
process server, forever clutching a faded subpoena.
The prophets were silent. Harold Camping,
so focused on the end did not foresee his own. There were wars,
and vaccines, and Barack Obama, and Donald Trump,
but these did not cause the destruction. It came instead
as silent as breath on a flower. There wasn’t even
a buzz in the air; just petals spread open
a final color guard to lay upon our casket.
We had run out of days
and no desk calendar remained
to tear off pages and predict the future.
The lost planet of the Sumerians did not crash
into the Mall of America as the Mayan’s predicted.
Judgment Day turned out to be an incompetent
process server, forever clutching a faded subpoena.
The prophets were silent. Harold Camping,
so focused on the end did not foresee his own. There were wars,
and vaccines, and Barack Obama, and Donald Trump,
but these did not cause the destruction. It came instead
as silent as breath on a flower. There wasn’t even
a buzz in the air; just petals spread open
a final color guard to lay upon our casket.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson