Genesis

      It is June 6th, and the snow won’t stop falling;

                     And the old ordered world,

       Its season long past,

                     Reeks of decay

                     Like corrupted fruit

       Or rotting meat.

       And the old earth,

                   Blinded with rage,

       Howls for love,

                    Smolders with hate,

       And reels drunken on its axis.

       And snow falls like a silent summons,

                    As ashes from a long-banked fire;

                              Burning,

        Until the last suffering soul

                    Trudging across the desert floor

        Reaches the Promised Land.

                    And broken spirits,

        Desperate and maligned,

                    Sick, hunted, and poor,

       Get their reckoning.

         And Ararat,

                     That mighty snowcapped mountain,

          Erupts in fire, torching the sky,

                      Visible to the whole earth;

            Illuminating four dark warriors,

                       Armored in iron and bronze,

                       Mocking the ones below.

            That roar as breakers on mighty waters;

             And the suffering sea

                       Rises ever closer to those dark knights

              In black armor on pale horses,

                        Proud and arrogant on their mighty mountain.

               And as the people rise,

                         A new vision sluices through the smoky darkness

                Revealing broken images:

                         Decomposed bodies

                Juxtaposed astride pale stallions,

                         Whose nightmare hooves

                Beat as death rattles on jagged rocks.

          And the long-touted Revelation story

                         Preached to frighten children

           Of Armageddon horsemen and bloody doomsday —

                           Like all bad dreams —

                                     Ends

                           In Genesis.

         And the fire and darkness pass away,

                         Spinning a new world on its axis,

         Suffusing the earth in newfound light, and

                         Saturating the level playing field of another kind of god.

         And a giant wind takes hold the Plague banner,

                       Hurls it down the cliffs to churning sea,

         And a nascent sun

                      Ascends on red ribbon banners

         Exposing hatred, fear, and cruelty.

        And the dark crumbling Adams fall like brittle clay,

                      As monuments made of sand.

        And the four winds whip

                      And a wave of sound like voices,

         No longer still,

                      Scatters ashes from ancient saddles,

        And casts that almighty mountain into the sea.

        And the snow falling in June

                                 Stops

                       Its descent at last;

        And a cooling breeze, clean and free,

                      Sweeps over the land,

        And hope spreads as eagle wings over the Promised Land.

By Susan H. Evans