If I Were a Poet

On Christmas night in 2004
a quarter of a million people near the Indian Ocean
went to sleep for the last time.

The universe is not just an impersonal
stew of quarks and gluons.
No, it is a cold-hearted assassin.
It will incinerate your home,
shred your flesh with fang and claw,
drown your dog,
and give your child the gift of cancer.

This world we call home
is horrifying beyond belief.
Still, somehow,
there is a blueprint for a new world,
written on a secret scroll.
In the end it will be opened and read aloud;
the world will crumble at the sound of that voice,
and when it has been rebuilt,
everything will finally be beautiful.