All along, a few, the silent ones,
sensed the day was coming,
knew even sky and water,
the silent earth reach their
limits and say no
though the first to revolt
were the mirrors who one day
refused our reflections, returning
only faces of fathers, mothers,
their parents, backward, backward,
a rush of flashing unknown eyes
until smoke from an original fire
and pure blankness forever
like a pupil with a cataract.
Nothing in the glass, nothing,
not the wall behind you,
the peeling plaster, the green
towel on its rack, a framed
print of Van Gogh. Nothing,
nothing anymore repeating us
and ours and what we’ve done
as we wait for the sky and the river,
the earth to finally say no more.