Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla —
Day of wrath, O day of warning!
Flame devours the world.
It does, even if we don’t see it.
For there are all sorts of flames:
slow, creeping cold ones
that bum inwardly
like flickering cancers.
And the slow cold flames
may bum for long years
before they’ve eaten through the joists and the girders
and the house comes down, with a subsiding crash.