This is the dream: February 2, 2003
by Ellen S. Jaffe
I turn on the television,
see the space shuttle
plunge out of the sky,
trailing plumes of debris,
and see the bombs
fall on Iraq (last night
the radio news spoke
of nuclear weapons,
"tactical uses", as if infinity
can be limited, clicked off at will.)
I think of seven astronauts killed on the shuttle Columbia,
the same day seven children die in British Columbia,
buried in fields of snow.
Crushed in snow, disintegrated in space,
it's all the same dying.
But in the dream, the television changes channels,
past these disasters... shows an Inuit village,
no, a drawing of an Inuit village -
a few houses, people, dogs,
spots of yellow and red, warm as blankets
in the falling snow.
Even these fade.
All that is left are hills, white
hills, soft as bodies
receding
toward the skyline
and ravens
flying curiously
overhead
no bombs, no planes,
only a voice in my ear:
this is how the world will end.
Look carefully
at the end
of the known
world.
