Bedtime Stories
for Grown-Ups
June 8 2009


When the tides stopped.
When the muddy flats dried-up
hard as rock,
and scuttling crabs dropped
dead as door-nails
— flipped on their backs,
picked-over by gulls, squawking
turkey vultures
hogging the fat ones —
we knew
the cataclysm had come.

No moon rose, that night,
and the constellations seemed to burn up the sky.
Showers of falling stars
bombarded us.
Meteorites
gave rise to prophecy
and awe.
Until all we saw was dust,
blotting-out the universe.

We wondered if the sun
would rise, next morning.
The devout prayed.
Sinners repented.
While the rest sought comfort
in lovers
and friends.

They say our bodies are too small
for tides to affect us.
And we all felt insignificant
that night —
the planet
wobbling in its orbit;
the ecliptic, shifted.

And the moon
a whimsy, a figment,
told in tales
to get fussy babies to sleep.
Such childish dreams;
all moonshine
and lunacy.