Poetry by Raylene Hinz-Penner

Prayer for the End of the World
Not as they promised it would be in the Rapture--
two to a plow but only one taken--the other one shaken
but left on soggy earth to watch the bottomsides
of the righteous as they ascend, sucked up to God,
arms skewered, narrow feet dangling.

Let us rather be summoned by geese--the earth aflutter
with the bywinds of their liftoff--drawn from our beds,
our fragmented dreams by myriad flocks feeling their way
to formation, straggling southbound V's. We would come
then, called, not running from frantic horses as if
from the first atomic bursts to hide in holes of concrete,
then sweaters huddled against the wall.

Give us a cool blue dawn. Awaken us with a moon too bright
to bear and the float of heavy bodies as they take the air,
primordial guides true to come sensual knowledge.


(Click here and scroll down for Hinz-Penner's comments about this poem.)
(Click here for an imitation of this poem by Abri Houser.)

Poem posted with permission from the author.

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