Not the First Time

Poems for the end of the world, and the day after that

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

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It’s hard right now, huh?

I love you. I’m here. Thanks for being here too.

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NIGHT SIRENS                                                                                2017


At two a.m. trucks rush screaming
from the fire house down the street,
and as the sirens warp away I lie limp
and numb, and listen for the next sound to confirm
the world is ending:  death’s mad, gleeful screech 
as it falls from the sky, the brutish rattle 
of artillery, shouts battering my door
the instant before a fist starts to crash
in fury against frail wood.
                             The fire-siren fades.
Nothing more happens. What I am listening for,
here in my soft bed between dreams and terror,
are things I never hear, knowing so little
 — just enough to grieve — of other lives
in other places, ruled by such alarms 
and violations; now my body, cradled
safe tonight, is learning to expect 
what others live and die with daily. 
                               Muscle by muscle, breath 
by breath, as I melt back toward sleep, 
I wish a quiet night to those besieged,
wish safety to the ones who never feel
the privilege of trusting they are safe,
avow the oneness of the broken world
whose hopes and cruelties we share, and pray 
for rest for all of us, rest and the strength we need
before we stand up to another day.

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NOT THE FIRST TIME                                                                   2021


This is not the first time the world has ended.
Always, somewhere, acrid smoke is rising
as the lights sputter out, always somewhere
the poor scream and bleed in the relentless jaws
of the powerful, always a lynch mob 
is swarming around the Other, enraged 
by their untamed voice and terrifying skin.
This is not the first time; always, somewhere,
everything is falling apart. And somewhere, always,
someone is baking bread or brewing tea,
someone helps a neighbor in their garden, while someone else
sits quiet next to a friend who cannot stop weeping
until they can. Somewhere, always, two strangers
are saying Hello and looking in each other’s faces
while they say the next thing; somewhere, always, 
someone is humming a song they like, and someone else
is reading a story to a child who turns the pages,
a story the child knows by heart
and wants to hear again. Always, somewhere, 
the world is ending. Somewhere, always,
the day goes on, the next day comes. It is enough.
It is never enough. It is what there is.

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