After Adam (Poem)

This poem first appeared in the spring 2010 issue of the Colorado Review and was reprinted in Vivisection.

After Adam

A stillness over the face
      of the water. Cranes remain
motionless. The air settles,

      colonizes the bowed spines
of pine, of cedar, of oak.
      The trees exhale, unheard in

the wide silence of the world.
      For once there are no voices,
humanity gone, as through

      a mirror, looking over
his shoulder as he goes, &
      vanishing down the many

paths to the world after men
      & the heavens fear neither
skyscrapers nor zeppelins.

      His fires burn out. Only the
stars are radioactive,
      trillions—the bubble image

of a thousand galaxies
      reflected & vanishing
in the distance, through mirrors.

      Who could look on that & not
weep, not tear his clothes, his hair?
      Creation, so much larger

than we’d feared. Yes, then, better
      none remain, the garden of
the earth dimming toward twilight,

      shadows over the deep, the
partial darkness of water:
      & man, asleep, dreaming of air.