Resignation

And so they marched,
those armies of God, so long ago
onto the plain of Armageddon they marched
commanded by generals but led, the men knew,
by God.
Allah.
Yahweh.
Krishna.
Just as the holy books predicted
the world ended in cataclysm and fire
and all the Gods died
with the race that created Them.

Now the oceans resound with the songs
of all the great whales, and sea turtles
bury their eggs in the sand of a thousand shores;
now salmon plunge over the remnants of dams
through crystalline waters;
now immense sequoias fill the clean sky.
Rainforests retake their ranges
while deserts walk backward.

Not one mind looks out through a pair of eyes
and sees this beauty…
but three billion years remain
before Sol swallows this sweet world
in the final cataclysm.
There is yet time for the rise
of another intelligent race…
perhaps one, next time,
that is also wise.