An Effort in the Prophetic Mode (with a bit of the elegiac)

                                 Prophet and Loss

                                                “Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

                                                 Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy”

                                                                                                            Czeslaw Milosz

On the last day everything turns inside out, then upside down,

Then the journey back, the way it was, before,

Carrying  all we have, more than we brought,

Traveling like the bees, gathering, brushing off sand, the gold dust

Of pollen, the thick, sticky honey of dawn and of sunset, the glowing ashes.

The line of white hives buzzing and humming like something electric.

The prophecy of the keeper of the bees: four years after they are gone

So are we.  A rustle in the scrubby underbrush, the rattle of palmetto leaves.

In the distance a train, its whistle blowing  a long  Doppler shift,

A broken voice of a high lonesome country song  as what comes to us

Goes away, growing fainter, quieter, a hush.

On the last day the shush of the surf, its steady susurration, in and out, breathes.

The code that unlocks everything: the gate, the doors, the chains, the wheels

Spinning.  Portals of time and space.  The Great Egret rises up and curves

Over Turnbull Bay, then lights on a distant tree, spreads its wings, a flower

Blossoming, a magnolia, then tucks its neck and wraps the wings

Around itself, becoming a bud again.  Then suddenly takes flight, its wings beating,

Wheeling.  Gone.  The time allotted too passes.  What we have done is

Done.  And we shall find ourselves in the future soon, in the light

Of everyday, that quotidian brightness, seeing it in the light of this time.

Time is an artist.  Making something out of everything.