Judgment Day (on the Anniversary of the Great Flood, Destruction, and Fall)

Sweet believers, you needn't show
Your holy briar patch to me.
It's tempting, but once in, I'm gone.
I was born and bred for The End.

Nuclear armageddon threatened
The autumn of my infancy,
My folks were evangelicals,
Founding members of a small church

Of folding chairs and cinderblocks,
Rife with chatter about Rapture,
And I inhaled science-fiction
Tales premised on Apocalypse.

Many awful things have happened
Around this world these five decades,
But as I'm here to testify,
The End Times haven't got here yet.

Then again, there's always today,
And for a few thousand of you,
This date is the day anointed:
7,000 years exactly,

By peculiar calculation,
From God's last destruction of Earth
In Noah's Flood (you know the one
Where all the species shrank to pairs

For six weeks on a wooden boat
While God worked on the Grand Canyon.)
Your mad, human beauty of faith
Stuns, amazes, and beguiles me.

Maybe this time you're right, maybe
The world at last will end tonight,
A flaming ball of holy fire,
Consumed by God-given desire,

As end it must for some of us,
Though we each find our end unjust
When fated to be ours alone.
How much more wonderful to go

With all creation, all at once,
More wondrous still to be among
The chosen few who wlll be saved.
Small wonder that the heathen rage!

That's the real appeal of The End:
To pass through and begin again,
The world wiped clear, as prophesied,
For me and mine to colonize.

Envoi

Such are the words of the Fool who pretends
Reality is real, forced to defend

His dry choice to accept things as they are,
Who sees nothing but light in every star.

Good luck to you, Sweet Believers who might
Yet share that last laugh in heaven tonight!