Theirs was a song of futility, an effort, once begun,
they could never stop. Certainly it was their not
knowing, their ignorance that we are all brothers,
which kept them at the grindstone; sharpening
knives to the keen edge we call Damascus,
and for the others, equally guilty, equally blinded
by their own estimations of prowess, firing missiles
from the prows of their vessels: the Greek Fire,
the Holocaust, the wrathful anger of Achilles, and a threat,
yes, it was only a threat, of atomic devastation.
It is an unfortunate story we have named Nemesis,
without a beginning, and whose end is too distant to imagine,
an elliptical Genghis Khan of the Oort layer
whose questionable, though un-benign existence, must touch
that which is ours with a theoretical
iteration of malevolence.
Wherefore paint these stratographic recordings of change,
this mumbo-jumbo of an historic appraisal,
other than to inform us
of our destiny?
It is as if we stand beneath a sky as glabrous as July 4th,
the quintecentennial, below a flim-flam of flashing Disney colors,
in a fantasia of cymbals.
Imagine these people: observing the death
of species: Dinosaur eggs cracking open unattended,
the restless, short, unenviable lives
of their contents; forests of ferns turning black,
rotting to the tune of a million meteors, without recourse,
without the ability to compute a meaning from their predicament.
Thus, having seen the inevitable, who can point
a blameless, contumelious finger at those who vent their spleen
upon brethren?
Here is the threat, an exquisite lemon peel of an ending.
It is called Nemesis. Out there. It is out there
in the darkness, waiting its clock’s full turn
to awaken.
