Suppose You Were The Last One Left?

And For A Moment He Held Out His Hands As If To Steady Himself Or As If To Bless The Ground There Or Perhaps As If To Slow The World That Was Rushing Away And Seemed To Care Nothing For The Old Or The Young Or Rich Or Poor Or Dark Or Pale Or He Or She. Nothing For Their Struggles, Nothing For Their Names. Nothing For The Living Or The Dead.

Once There Were Brook Trout In The Streams In The Mountains. You Could See Them Standing In The Amber Current Where The White Edges Of Their Fins Wimpled Softly In The Flow. They Smelled Of Moss In Your Hand. Polished And Muscular And Torsional. On Their Backs Were Vermiculate Patterns That Were Maps Of The World In Its Becoming. Maps And Mazes. Of A Thing Which Could Not Be Put Back. Not Be Made Right Again. In The Deep Glens Where They Lived All Things Were Older Than Man And They Hummed Of Mystery.

It Looks A Lot Better From Up Here Than It Does Down There, Dont It? Yes. It Does. There's A Lot Of Things Look Better At A Distance. Yeah? I Think So. I Guess There Are. The Life You've Lived, For One. Yeah. Maybe What Of It You Aint Lived Yet, Too.

The Soft Black Talc Blew Through The Streets Like Squid Ink Uncoiling Along A Sea Floor And The Cold Crept Down And The Dark Came Early And The Scavengers Passing Down The Steep Canyons With Their Torches Trod Silky Holes In The Drifted Ash That Closed Behind Them Silently As Eyes.

They Rode On And The Sun In The East Flushed Pale Streaks Of Light And Then A Deeper Run Of Color Like Blood Seeping Up In Sudden Reaches Flaring Planewise And Where The Earth Drained Up Into The Sky At The Edge Of Creation The Top Of The Sun Rose Out Of Nothing Like The Head Of A Great Red Phallus Until It Cleared The Unseen Rim And Sat Squat And Pulsing And Malevolent Behind Them.