Silence

Around 4am, maybe earlier, I hear God.

Noah. Noah it’s going to rain.

Build an ark.

Build it big enough to hold your animals

so your herds and flocks won’t drown

when the waters rise.

That voice is hard to ignore.

Noah didn’t. I couldn't.

That voice which every father and mother

ever born has heard sounds tonight

more like space junk falling from heaven,

or the wing beats a bat makes

as it escapes a laboratory.

It sounds like pension funds exhausted;

the market, our currency, our faith in each other,

all the fabrications we base our life on, collapsing.

If I can catch my breath

and if my ears stop ringing

maybe I can fall back to sleep

before the squall line crests the hill,

before rain and sleet whip the glass,

before the levee breaks and vigilantes

kick in the front door. If I started now

I could not fell enough trees.