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 stone.
You and I lie about under the moonless sun
Still unsure of what it is that is burning.
In a single eye. We think we can see a small dance
A tiny rose-hipped dancer as shy
As the white passing.
You and I (remember!) came here from
In the breast of a river some call "Wonder"
(Others named her "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 meadows below there was the smell
Of fecund beasts. They sacrificed our will, left only
A feather, a single boa feather, that, they tell us,
Fell from the August towers, was to save us from woe.
The beasts must 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
All 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 cross-beams,
Retrieving the babes from their graves.