In the Event of an Apocalypse, Be Ready to Die

But do also remember galleries, gardens, herbariums. Repositories of
beauty now ruin to find exquisite— 

the untidy, untended loveliness of the forsaken, of dirt-studded & mold-
streaked treasures that no longer belong to anyone alive, overrunning 

& overflowingly unkempt monuments to the disappeared. Chronicle
internally the heroes & mothers, artisans who went to the end of the line, 

protectors & cowards. Remember when pain was not to be seen or
looked at, but institutionalized. Invisible, unspoken, transformed but
not really transformed. Covered up with made-up valor or resilience. 

Some people are not worth saving, no one wants to say, but they say it
in judgment. They say it in looking away. They say it in staying safe in
a lane created by someone afraid of losing ground, thinking 

I doubt we’re much to look at, as we
swallow what has to hurt until we can sing 
sharp as blades. Aiming for the sensational 

as we settle for the ordinary when avoiding evidence of suffering at all
costs, & cherish 
the opportunity to reach clone-like into the ground as aspen roots, or
slide feet first down a soft slope, wet, cold, but the faith to fall toward
the unseen, against the bleak of most 

memory, call it elusive. Call it 
the fantasy to end all fantasies, a waiting fatality, the wreck of both
education & habit. 

We could watch ourselves lose it all. There’s a chance.