After the Flood

Continuing the story, humanity stumbles –
gone is the glory, there’s a far distant rumble.
The clouds have gathered and exploded now:
axes shattered, there is no North or South.
Far off, the ice is foundering slowly,
the ice is turning to water,
the ice is turning to water.

The water rushes over all
cities crash in the mighty wave;
the final man is very small,
plunging in for his final bathe.

This is the ending of the beginning,
this is the beginning of the end,
middle of the middle, mid-point, end and start:
the first peak rises, forces the waves apart.
Far off, the ice is now re-forming:
poles are fixed once more,
water’s receding, like death-blood.

And when the water falls again,
all is dead and nobody lives.

And then he said:
‘Every step appears to be
the unavoidable consequence of the preceding one,
and in the end there beckons more and more clearly
total annihilation’

This is the ending of the beginning,
this is the beginning of the end,
And when the water falls again,
all is dead and nobody lives.