The End
The sorry pass you and I have been trying to avoid.
I think our time has come:
A new blood strain is taking over the stones.
You and I lie about under the moonless sun
Still unsure of what it is that is burning.
In that single eye. We can see a small dance
A tiny rose-hipped dancer as shy
As the white passing.
You and I (remember!) came here from
The beast of a river some call Wonder,
Others have named All-Misery.
The enemy forced his way into us
Through the seven famous entry-ways. They
Ate our souls for breakfast, our nights for love.
In the slag meadows below there is now the smell
Of fecund beasts. They've stolen our will, left only
A feather, a single boa feather, that, they tell us,
Fell from the August tower, will save us.
The beasts turn away, loping along the sea where
The old people have been taken by the waves.
And so, you and I Jesus are assigned the task
To be the last of the caring Jews, pulling
Babes from their graves by dawn
(They've told us we can have them all).
We'll leave at sunrise, moving carefully
About the edges of the falling crosses
Retrieving the babes from their graves.