Saecula Saeculorum

He that cometh after me is mightier than I.

Saecula Saeculorum
He that cometh after me is mightier than I.

The world ends every day,
has already ended this morning,
ends over lunch,
will have ended again by bedtime.

Some say the world ends once a century,
or is it every time you fall asleep,
and some say once in a million.

The oldest universe revolved around us,
as does this latest.
There was one world from which we hung by our toes,
if Augustine is to be believed,
another was built on seven columns, went down nine levels,
skipped the thirteenth floor.
One was a tree.

The world has been lost, misplaced,
unveiled suddenly in a revelation,
disappeared like a dissident,
been obscured under the sands of time,
outbred and outpaced and simply forgotten.

Sometimes its endings are localized,
like when the Soviets entered Berlin
and none of the guilty were spared,
or when Alaric rode into Rome
and some of the innocent were spared,
but most often they are universal:
the tearing of the curtain to the Holiest of Holies,
the Fall of Jerusalem,
the death of your mother.

The world cries out
I have not seen this day before.
Won’t be water, be fire next time,
and what is this child’s Christian name?