Here's how it will happen:
One by one
stars will come back to the sky
the sun will re-light, shrink back
resume its former course.
The earth will return green and unscorched
mists condense into river
floods rush back up steep slopes from the gorges.
Armies will pull back from battle, and -
as wars un-start -
the dead will re-semble
rise up on marionette stalks -
adolescent, then child, then infant -
sucked back to the womb, unborn.
Amphibious mammals, gills sprouting from craw
will sink back to the bubbling muds
while cycads retreat in their waxy pods
and ferns re-furl in tight shining buds.
And at last, the planets and stars
will disperse into dust,
swirl out in diffuse arcs -
then collapse -
into that first-last crush
of unspeakable light.
One by one
stars will come back to the sky
the sun will re-light, shrink back
resume its former course.
The earth will return green and unscorched
mists condense into river
floods rush back up steep slopes from the gorges.
Armies will pull back from battle, and -
as wars un-start -
the dead will re-semble
rise up on marionette stalks -
adolescent, then child, then infant -
sucked back to the womb, unborn.
Amphibious mammals, gills sprouting from craw
will sink back to the bubbling muds
while cycads retreat in their waxy pods
and ferns re-furl in tight shining buds.
And at last, the planets and stars
will disperse into dust,
swirl out in diffuse arcs -
then collapse -
into that first-last crush
of unspeakable light.