Sudden Shattering

Down through ages countless,

They dwelt silently—dreaming—envisioning,

Seeking avaricious content like sages soulless,

Star-born selfishness true—at last harvesting

Familiar, loved crops in the time we know so well.

How sweet ignorance persisted,

As assured dominance flourished into narrow confidence,

Like gentle fables perfect, never doubted--never twisted!

‘Till that daemon damned day of shattered ignorance,

Unwanted, unimaginable, ascendance into realities harsh.

From under a sister world They burst,

Cruel betrayal of all truths, sudden life from rusty death,

Arrival’s greeting was purest savagery, inspired by unquenchable thirst,

For one day Earth gasped and choked—out of mind, out of breath—

Sanity quelled by sudden impossible blows.

Mighty Sol trembled, casting pale beams over ebony realms,

One day stretched onward to days of desperation, abhorrent, clumsy war,

Oceans boiled, land wavered, skies vomited, with the unchained Atom at battle’s helm,

Mettles and metals mingled—Fate made bravery and cowardice a common sore,

Time melted with space, flowing, congealing, cooling into one shell.

That rock’s natives spiraled down, suffered, and reeled,

Sinking beyond collapse into morasses of natural barbarism and bravery,

Those invader’s advantages waned, faltered, and sealed--

Promises unforeseen of quagmires, inevitable costs of jealousy and slavery,

‘Till at last purposes and mutual causes seemed hollow and lost.

Then finally boorish retreat ensued,

Battered withdrawal of One into the galactic void,

Overthrow of the Other, thrust into the unstressed Psyche’s coup,

Separate again, tending wounds bled by mutual confidence destroyed,

Yet, irreversibly aware—conscious, brooding, plotting, after the Sudden Shattering.