Quickening

It comes to me in cycles,
this certainty of a dying epoch.
I can forget it for awhile,
but then headlines catch my eyes.
Anomalies, strangeness, prophecies come to pass.
I send you the clippings,
ragged pieces to past on the wall,
eager reading as I keep up my death-watch,
and hum a tender song to still my heart
against the fear of these ends times.
I hear the words in the strangest places.
A newscaster on NPR.
The ticket boy at the movie theater.
A laughing talk show host.
"...end of the world...the last days..."
Dire words fit casually into conversation.
And we dance our rosy rings until we fall down.
We wrap ourselves in comfort things.
We take our pills and change the channel.
But I'm giving you the dispatches.
You and I, we need to know.
So when the sky finally bleeds,
we'll have our fine black umbrellas
safely over our nodding heads.