UPHEAVAL

 We balance on a transient tightrope strung across

          a crevasse too wide to bridge,

We sway in a catastrophic wind listening

          for earthen tremblors and volcanic explosions,

We tremble from visions of apocalyptic

wild fires, tornadoes, droughts, and floods,

We scan the horizon for an asteroid impact  

          like the K-Pg mass extinction event,

We calculate that the sun will become a red giant

          in five billion years and engulf the earth,

We hypothesize the end of our universe and

          baryonic matter,

But above all we sense the aggression and violence

         of our own kind whose maniacal dance

wobbles the high wire and causes us to

lose our equilibrium and slip into oblivion

like virtual particles

popping into and out of existence.

 

©cmheuer, March, 2023