Page 13 - Packing for the Apocalypse

NOW
POEM 5
Ballast sloshing. Anchors dragging. Wind slaps. Wake up! Batten down the hatch. There will be A storm surge. Tighten up. Fit to run. Ready or Not. No, there is no Not. Ready or nothing. Go! First the pictures. Our lives are in them. Me in My beautiful twenties with camera. You gazing At me in the restaurant. Love. Years of flowers, Bouquets. Every anniversary more magnificent Than the others. I find no photographs of all the Arguments. Only love and the getting over it all. A record of constancy. Moments of life. Beauty. Pictures, residues of emotion. Moments. Being In this life. This. Life. Imperfect as it is, was, will Be? It is what my being made. It is what I’d hate To lose. Yet, I dread the weight. I want freedom To hope for something. Maybe that’s a mistake. Some say the world as we know it is over. Just Wait. There will be tanks in the street! Ready or Not. I’m leaving. Getting out of here. For safety. Into what country? Is there a cave? Somewhere We can start anew? Us. A new species. Better? Not with all those ratty others. But this Earth is Round. Don’t you remember? Air, wind, fire. It Goes around. You can’t escape all the stuff you Made, can you? Bad and good, in between, all. And isn’t that better than that alternative? Than Nothing? When it’s the Nothing we run from?
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