MILLENNIUM BLUES

Heidi Woolever

People say
airplanes will fall from the sky.
People say
power companies will shut down
freezing some while baking others.
People say
weapons systems are to be on the blink,
deploying away, turning on themselves and us,
while the rich and powerful slip
away inside mountains
to play shuffleboard, eat shrimp, and generally carry on.

Some ordinary folks make due with stockpiling--
as if they were somehow sure the basement will be intact,
and when it all goes down they will have balanced, if canned, meals.

Now fallout shelters are coming back into the picture,
the gloom of it!
I see the intelligent doomsayers
make it on the 11 o'clock news while
good Catholics make it to Mass slightly more often,
thinking nearer to the end it might count more,
an extra rosary here and there.

Still another crew on the corner, cussin',
simply trying to get through the hour.

Nostradamus called for an Antichrist, but he's dead.

I don't care to shake a stick at it myself,
I guess that rivers will run and wind will blow
and worms crawl. As dogs bark I will
stand at the window in the morning,
light a match, heat up water for tea.