Have you seen the mud
streaked across 
the hardwood floor?

Or, wait-

Did you watch the cat 
sleeping in the barn?

I see.

Surely, then, 
you’ve been tucked in
by the night sky?
You’ve seen the thunderheads 
crying and spitting lightning
so they could wash the face of the earth?

Well, maybe you’ve met
the white-haired woman
I spoke with in the shop-
who told me of classrooms
and busses full of protesters,
and of her husband, long-gone,
she who outlived 
her mother, father, brothers, sisters?

The one who looked at me, smiling,
who stared then out the window
with a face like a child’s,
and said,

“I swear,
life
is just…
amazing!”

?

Alright, then.

(He waves the pamphlet in the air. 
The world is ending.
“Do you believe?!?”

“I do,” I say,
“yesterday I took my dog to the park,
and stared into the eyes of God,
and was licked by the Buddha’s tongue.”)