What Do You Hear Now, Walt Whitman? (19)

19

I stare at the sky, lonely and I wonder
is that really starlight or just the heavens crashing down.

Istare at the great fires and waves, the tumbling terror of the trembling twilight
thrusting and thrashing and ravaging and calling the world to sleep.
If our time is now we ought to embrace it and let the world cave in.
I smile as the clouds devour themselves and the fields flare ablaze.
I reach for the splattered colors and reshape the heavens.
I reach for soul and stir it about.
I grab hold of the ground and pray for save travel.
I let go and escape in a breeze through the waves of the sky.

The destruction flows through me and moves me;
it keeps me afloat as I dance through the ages.
I watch the world collapse and stumble time and time again -
every mistake like a vision across my eyes.
A tunnel surrounds me -
a sharp, endless tunnel of visions and prophesies -
tales of past and present and the ages upon ages.
It all blends together and recycles and becomes one.
It surrounds me and enthralls me,
bringing my inners to life and stealing my soul.
It laughs and whispers softly the words of ages.
It crashes in a beautiful nightmare of flames raging like all wars at once.

It ignites my heart and prepares me for the end of existence.
I combust and evaporate.
Everything is calm.
Everything is repeating.
My eyes blink and I know the world is safer now adazed than ever before.
It is our endless floating that makes us real and relentless.
It is our constant confusion that keeps us still.
It is the end of the days and new beginning.
It is only safe when the light dies down.

I hear myself call in the distance.
I feel it breathe and barrage under my skin.
The heavens smile and release.
The worst is over.
The days and the nights flare into one with one final gleam of life,
but come crashing back into the daze that is and ever will be.

We are life and we are still.
I open my eyes and I see.