Now emerged, set off at a tremendous pace
at the crest of a ridge, surprised
we knelt more in fear
than love
and water helped to ask
"is this all it is this this sun of ours?"
Boom.
There goes another experiment
to shelter us.
Caught our breath, it did, to observe
each tree and root in light,
reminded of the cool beneath,
sunk to our knees
we no longer could tell the difference
between the dead and
the warm stones of the living –
no compass but something dark and quiet
a
canopy over all
and over earth guided us to nil.
Was it enough to lie there?
To pick the new horizon above?
To walk on and up, to reveal
from this point on, in nice commercials,
electric storms ahead, rain, floods,
The re-organisation of cities –
all that we had
with categories of a hundred atom bombs
delivering
an empty, glorious sunset.
A hollow boom preceded by air raid warning
did not know enough.