eschatology

Eve L. Ewing

i’m confident that the absolute dregs of possibility for this society, the sugary coffee mound at the bottom of this cup, our last best hope that when our little bit of assigned plasma implodes  it won’t go down as a green mark in the cosmic ledger, lies in the moment when you say hello to a bus driver  and they say it back—

when someone holds the door open for you  and you do a little jog to meet them where they are—

walking my dog, i used to see this older man  and whenever I said good morning,  he replied ‘GREAT morning’—

in fact, all the creative ways our people greet each other may be the icing on this flaming trash cake hurtling through the ether. 

when the clerk says how are you  and i say ‘i’m blessed and highly favoured’ 

i mean my toes have met sand, and wiggled in it, a lot.  i mean i have laughed until i choked and a friend slapped my back. i mean my niece wrote me a note: ‘you are so smart + intellajet’

i mean when we do go careening into the sun, 

i’ll miss crossing guards ushering the grown folks too, like ducklings  and the lifeguards at the community pool and men who yelled out the window that they’d fix the dent in my car,  right now! it’d just take a second—

and actually everyone who tried to keep me alive, keep me afloat,  and if not unblemished, suitably repaired.

but I won’t feel too sad about it, becoming a star 

In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’

Thomas Hardy

Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch-grass; Yet this will go onward the same Though Dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by: War's annals will cloud into night Ere their story die.