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Not Alone
Late night glancing from an old book
arguing the universe is kind I noticed
nearly slanting sideways and flaring
out above a roof a shooting star and
sensed from farthest planet one ship
receiving a dire command rocketed
through 10,000 galaxies to reach us.
Three falling yellow leaves suggest
in darkness underground our distant
first relatives keep tunneling to save
evolved mankind. In an ocean trench
deep as Alps are high a once perfect
drowned city decays while survivors
breathing with aqualung or gradually
adapted gills ascend to tell the story
of lost Atlantis. Hourly we decipher
from literature, shedding maple trees,
comber breaking, pure trumpet notes
of Louis Armstrong an angel’s secret
code, brave order to abandon heaven.
Just as soldiers descend rope ladders
to rocking shore-bound landing craft
spirits ride light waves from a worried
sun. Their armies rush to relieve Red
Cross and serve the seven continents’
hurt and failing in tents of houses and
apartment towers. That sudden chorus
of crickets sings the animals converse
in a pale meadow, the forest clearing
where wounded deer lay down white
bones. They listen, nod, speak in turn
as all divine one desperate daring plan
with odds of rescue like soaring spire
of swaying Babel and dip wide antler,
beak and fang, feathered crest, scaled
brow to close inhuman eyes in prayer.
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