Birth at the End of the World

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Birth at the End of the World

Birth at the End of the World

She was my Lover;
Only last week we rode each other hard like wolves.
Now we hide then run,
And stumble pass corpses roasted
Still holding guns.
She pushed apart thorns
As I battle briars;
We bend between old, rusty, barbed wire
Into a forest clearing edged with boxwoods
Overgrown, shabby, and still magnificent.

To our surprise tombstones totter among moss and ivy
With names and dates worn down from the 1850s:
Shelley Marie Gilead, Beloved of Samuel Ross Gilead,
b. April 13, 1835, d. February 15, 1857 of Childbirth Fever.”
Carved across a grayish-green short stone was levered
A broken name lost to time and the dates, “February 14 – 18, 1857.”

Suns flash in the nearby distance,
Heat and flames pulse over us and roll the dead
Into the waters of a beaver pond swamp
Edged by drowned forest, lifeless birds, and waters rising
With dead, blistered fish.
Inside me I question Divine Love, Divine Mercy, Divine Compassion…
Where on Earth are they?
Or are we already in Hell?

3x.Birth at the End of the World

Genesis Extinguished beneath Saturn's Return

Genesis Extinguished beneath Saturn’s Return

"Saturno devorando a su hijo/Saturn devours His Son," Francisco de Goya (1819-1823)

“Saturno devorando a su hijo/Saturn devours His Son,” Francisco de Goya (1819-1823)

“Saturno devorando a su hijo/Saturn devours His Son”

5x.Birth at the End of the World

Apocalypse in February on the Edge of Swamps

Genesis plays out over and over again
As Earth reforms every few millennia or so.
From PreAncient Antarctica to Atlantis to Noah and Gilgamesh,
From Gobekli Tepe to Catal Hoyuk to Harrapa and Uruk…
Long Time marches forward,
Clocked against the sky and
Measured in Long Counts by the Mayans
Beneath the long gaze of the Annunaki,
We destroy ourselves in the childbirth of civilizations
Long before any Prehistoric Gods return to eat us.

But not fast enough to learn We are the Ones
Who must first master the Power of loving and forgiving Ourselves
And share compassion and wise stewardship of Home.
We stagger to water’s edge where trees crumble and rot
As boils rise from our flesh amid a rain of blood.
The Sun burns away Sol
And Darkness reigns beyond Night.
Thirsty, we stoop to drink.

Sun burns away Sol

Sun burns away Sol

Saturn returns with famished Hunger
Amid the Chaos of Titans and Annunaki
Between Terra and Caelus.
We lift up our arms
And before they fall off
We shout a final cry toward Wormwood skies,
“MOMMA!”

2x.DSC_0053

 

Momma Pregnant at the End of the World becomes The Ark.

 

A Photo-Poem
by
William Dudley Bass
February 1982? 1983? 1984?
6 January 2007
20 February 2012
Seattle, Washington

NOTE: The image of the painting is from one of The Black Paintings by the Old Master Francisco de Goya y Luceintes of Spain between 1819 -1823. It is now Public Domain. All of the other pictures are photographs by me and as such remain Copyrighted by me as the Author. The first three are versions from a dayhike into the beaver pond swamps of Sandy River, Virginia in the early 1980s. The latter two are from around Seattle, Washington in early 2012.

“Birth at the End of the World” was originally published as a photo essay of sorts on 6 January 2007 in my older blog Cultivate and Harvest, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2007/01/birth-at-end-of-world.html. Then it was edited, expanded into a photo-poem, and re-published here. Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2007, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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