At the end of the world…
We will become not strangers but merely more ourselves;
the silent will be more silent, the loving more loving,
the faithless will not gain faith, though they may regret
not learning to pretend more convincingly, whether to others
or themselves; even the earth will not change its face
overly; where there was ice, there may be water;
where there was light, fire. We were going to die anyway.
Our last gift to ourselves is not to change too much.
Michalle Gould’s first book of poetry, “Resurrection Party,” was recently published by Silver Birch Press. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a librarian.
