21 DECEMBER 2012

      The Mayan calendar predicts the End
      Is nigh, this very week—Apocalypse!
      Two days from now an asteroid may rend
      Our fragile planet with a force that strips
      The atmosphere off from this globe and wakes
      Volcanoes round the world to spew despair,
      While every living organism quakes
      Before its final breath of toxic air.

      Or not.  Another understanding says
      It’s not breakdown we face but a breakthrough,
      The dawning of a higher consciousness,
      The birth of an awakened species who
      Can understand at last how we depend
      On loving one another: that’s our End.

*