The World After

In which I imagine both backward and forward . . .

After the last airplane has flown,
the last car stands idle on the empty highways,
the lights have gone out in all the high-rises,
the traders no longer call on the floor of the bourse,
teenagers no longer parade the latest fashions,
mothers no longer wheel their prams in the public parks,
and the lights on all the cell towers have winked out,
a pair of ducks will still be winging their way
north to their nesting grounds . . .

As they did when steamships puffed from London to Calcutta,
or triremes hugged the Mediterranean coast,
or the first clever ape figured out that sticks float
and told his friends about this incredible discovery,
while his wife showed their baby how, in the sky above,
the wild ducks were winging their way north
as they always had.

(The image is Two Ducks and the Moon by Ohara Koson.)

This poem was originally published on my poetry blog, here: “The World After” by Theodora Goss