To Those Who Believe We Are Living In The Last Days I Say, Poem by Pamela Spiro Wagner

it goes with the territory - end
of the millennium, end of the world.
Criswell promises a black rainbow,
a perfect symbol against thinking we will live
forever. In the year 999, the faithful,
journeying east towards Jerusalem,
unprovisioned, starved to death en route,
and in 1900 in Kargopol, Russia,
cultists locked themselves in their houses
and set them on fire, believing God
had promised them glory. The future
scares us silly, so we do silly things,
like the farmer who led seven
white-robed cows to the final hilltop
because Heaven’s “a long trip and the kids
will want milk.” Armageddon?
This morning a V of geese
wheeled overhead, snowplowing
through a climb of clouds, drawn home
by the miracle we call instinct,
as if the earth has a mind of its own,
and nothing human or divine can loose
the boulders of its bones
before its own sweet time.