This is the way the world ends
With the baby’s face piercing out of the darkness of Mary’s cradle
Into a shaft of light that illuminated the town
No, that did not happen.

Barrels and hay on top of old wagons
They hug each other so tightly although
They are mostly in love with themselves
Like the townspeople
Bundled up against the cold
Poor, hungry, ordinary,
Each with his own suffering
Suspended between a bored gray sky and a cruel white earth

February engulfed these little ants, crawling and crunching,
And swallowed them with meager drops of honey
Too bitter it vomited snow.
A damp despair draped over the town
Like a sheet of wet black velvet, only it was white
But aren’t they different shades of the same color,
Like suffering and indifference?

It was a census
And every head counted just about the same
In the blinding snow
That fell on every head just about the same
It was a census

Until the savior comes, they heard
But the wagon wheels are circling birth and death
And God failed to cross the length of a wheel’s circumference