The world is not ending, let us say this.
It has ended.
German miners, 1856—picking at the limestone,
burrowing in the creases of the earth—found
the hollow flattened skulls, cracked thighs,
long fingers, disjointed arms clawing out
of that darkness.
These creatures buried their dead, ground stone,
they spoke, their hands tore at the roots of trees. Perhaps
they cared for the lame, the blind, led them
over the rougher earth. They may have chewed
the food of the old, fed them tenderly
through thickets of rotted teeth.
They also ate their dead, the flesh ripped
away from the bone, sinews white, red wet hands.
The miners feared the bones. But one man, young,
hacking his life away, held
a skull in his hands, the eye sockets
addressing his own eyes.
Then he put it down and cracked it with his pick.
The other men looked away, but did not protest:
a long hard day, little time.