The day the apocalypse ends
The women will have risen
Sweet potatoes from loam, tilled earth
Survival of the species, life and birth
Do not depend on guns, nor blood
But an unfurled sapling

When the children return to school
And the nurses display their strength
We realise the essentials
Our grandparents, our babies
Do not depend on algorithms, nor capital

A hand-sewn mask made for comfort
To defy the White Horseman
Means the women will have risen
The day the apocalypse ends

Sausages and good beer at half past five
With dawn in the window yellowing
White walls and a collage of abstracts
Mismatched chairs at the table

We are only young if you see us
To hear our voices we are older than time
Cynics and lovers and philosophers arrogance
We have already been too much

This is where life happens
Where the loneliness beneath the tinsel lays bare
And brute honesty takes itself walking
Like a great black dog in our shadows

This is where we talk
Put words to what is dormant wordless
Dark brown ale between our teeth
Dark blue night behind our eyes

You have left me dazed and confused
Lost in my own imaginings
And if you see me wander
Cease, desist, let me be
I am not here for you
I am unto myself
A lone wild thing
Untampered and forlorn

On the shore of a sea of ice
I stood awestruck by tears
At the sky as it moved
Birds specked in gold sunset light
Blue, the colour of grace

Black ink branches, sky
Sky flows and knells in vast empty space
A hollow where the birds sing
The wilderness of my mind
Meets the wildness of the grass
And folds back into sanity

Restless Ulysses calling seaward
Wave-crest and trough on water
Bark seal slap rush
Carve one sweep, two sweep
Push and the wayfarer
Boot, back, and shoulder
A life neatly bundled going on
On and on and on; wander
Because no god is present
Without vastness, surrender
Fire lick crackle burn driftwood blue
On the sand in the gravel
And restless sailor calling seaward
Take the horizon to break
Spine and sinew ironmonger
The old and elderly will fondly remember
These days when we were strong
And the stars unobscured by smoke