Vortex into Space
I.
In preparation for the exodus
which they know cannot now be avoided,
all earthly life, in its wisdom,
prepares for its final journey.
No wisdom is to be found
in the community
of the human destroyers,
so they are left behind.
II.
The seas roil
with the state of earthly affairs.
The heat. The stench. The melting.
Now to begin:
the whales and dolphins
swirl in a mass, spinning a vortex
of colossal pressure.
The fishes and pods join in.
All of the remaining species of sea and earth,
essential to the maintenance
of a viable biosphere,
are drawn to the action,
as light into a black hole.
The water energy collapses
into an immense column,
until it fuses into the heads
and tails
of all the creatures.
Spinning. Spinning.
Then the centrifuge coils
into a rising whirlpool.
The fusion of all life
blasts through all the bodies
of all the species
and then right through, and out of the heads
of the onrushing life, roaring out into space.
The spiraling waters tower into the atmosphere,
then spread as if the delta of a river,
thrust to the margins of the outer realms,
filling it as a sea
that had been dry.
III.
And the earth was dried completely
behind it.
All the species of earth, save one,
are sucked up through the vortex,
unable to resist the vacuum,
the suction.
The earth is sucked dry,
as withered debris.
The flood flows outward
and outward,
and upward
and upward,
flowing as a stream.
IV.
The humans remain oblivious.
The sun pastes a gauzy shade
over the surface of the stream,
a stream that only exists
in their hazy memory.
Its rays pierce here or there,
but below, it is dark.
Above, the upper layer
is creamy with a fuzzy light.
A speck of debris floats drunkenly
toward the surface of the stream.
It’s erratic course –
now drifting, now hesitant –
is punctuated by a blip
of faint rings
when it reaches the top.
V.
A man, all bearded and old,
at rest on the bank,
looks on, unmoving.
The stream flows on,
as it has always seemed to,
carrying all in its way, to the sea.
A sea that is no more.
In preparation for the exodus
which they know cannot now be avoided,
all earthly life, in its wisdom,
prepares for its final journey.
No wisdom is to be found
in the community
of the human destroyers,
so they are left behind.
II.
The seas roil
with the state of earthly affairs.
The heat. The stench. The melting.
Now to begin:
the whales and dolphins
swirl in a mass, spinning a vortex
of colossal pressure.
The fishes and pods join in.
All of the remaining species of sea and earth,
essential to the maintenance
of a viable biosphere,
are drawn to the action,
as light into a black hole.
The water energy collapses
into an immense column,
until it fuses into the heads
and tails
of all the creatures.
Spinning. Spinning.
Then the centrifuge coils
into a rising whirlpool.
The fusion of all life
blasts through all the bodies
of all the species
and then right through, and out of the heads
of the onrushing life, roaring out into space.
The spiraling waters tower into the atmosphere,
then spread as if the delta of a river,
thrust to the margins of the outer realms,
filling it as a sea
that had been dry.
III.
And the earth was dried completely
behind it.
All the species of earth, save one,
are sucked up through the vortex,
unable to resist the vacuum,
the suction.
The earth is sucked dry,
as withered debris.
The flood flows outward
and outward,
and upward
and upward,
flowing as a stream.
IV.
The humans remain oblivious.
The sun pastes a gauzy shade
over the surface of the stream,
a stream that only exists
in their hazy memory.
Its rays pierce here or there,
but below, it is dark.
Above, the upper layer
is creamy with a fuzzy light.
A speck of debris floats drunkenly
toward the surface of the stream.
It’s erratic course –
now drifting, now hesitant –
is punctuated by a blip
of faint rings
when it reaches the top.
V.
A man, all bearded and old,
at rest on the bank,
looks on, unmoving.
The stream flows on,
as it has always seemed to,
carrying all in its way, to the sea.
A sea that is no more.