AFTER THE APOCALYPSE
What if the Apocalypse wasn’t a bad thing?
What if the Apocalypse was the right thing?
The resolve we have been waiting for?
The resoluting note to a chord struck flat and out of key.
The reverberation oscillating at a new frequency,
To pull us out of ruts reinforced with steel
and centuries of structure unsound;
signifying Nothing.
A revolution categorized outside of its industrial ties.
Heartwarmingly opposed.
Organically-inclined.
The
APOCALYPSE
brought about death to a society wrought with instability.
What occurs afterwards is not necessarily a bad thing.
The birds did not fly South for the winter.
In fact, they tunnelled
down.
They filed for construction licenses,
hired contractors,
and began work on Southern travel on a
different plane.
They flocked to mines in Sudbury
Taking over spaces once held by flightless union workers
Now inhabited by soaring yellow jackets
out of construction worker orange,
clad in the plumage of a different hue.
Adorned in the necessary safety precautions, They transform rock quarries into Roadless Superhighways as they tunnel
deeper
and
deeper
into
the
Earth
center
of
the
It’s certainly warmer south of the equator, but travelling below it is just as good
if not better.
The birds now burrow in the winter months.
Abandoning their foliage-covered homes for something a little darker,
and a space that is rightfully their own.
They fly straight into the Earth’s molten core scorching themselves.
They are well above
what they
could handle.
- a lot warmer -
- or below -
- or anyone -
They bring their paperwork with them.
Abandoning everything in a final declaration
of supplication,
of regret,
of refusal.
Abandoning life as they know it.
For one
of mystery.
For one
of surprise.
to
our
sunlit
back
snow
Travelling
rise
from
this
they
firey
melted
Like phoenixes,
core
spaces
speeds
exploding
at
lightning
back
budding
and
blooming
below.
from
They are changed.
They want little to do with the ways things were.
They are ready for us to join them.
To reinvent what was.
To ditch and discover new.
time,
and
after
final
it
the
for
Sun
rose
the
would
wilt.
Petals
peeling
orbit,
into
away
off
as
float
they
in
shades
continents
of
red;
Eventually
the
Canopying
tumbling
into
the
Sea.
A
newborn
a
child.
giant
like
planet
blanket
the
swaddling
After the Apocalypse,
Earth would regress
to a second
childishness.
A second chance to grow,
To be taught,
To be nurtured,
To be loved.
From then on the Sun would instead bloom
Reversing roles of air and land;
Plum trees
Watercress
Magnolias
Daffodils
,
,
,
,
,
,
Peonies
Dandelions
,
Daisies
Baby's Breath
Rooting in the sky permanently.
We
begin
to
walk
on
air
particles.
We
sit
in
the
clouds
and
point
out
passing
vaguely
look
like
that
past
shrubs
politicians
or
barnyard
animals.
We admire the birds that fly through
Rocks.
the
We remind ourselves
to cut back the grass
before it gets too long
and dangles from the sky like party streamers.
A world
rearranged,
Remastered
Where we look up to the Earth Sky for inspiration.
Where we cherish the land upon which we once walked with the same wonder and amazement as the infinite sky once out of reach,
now inhabited.
This garden will not be written about in a large important book.
It will be lived on.
It will be lived.
It will live on
AFTER THE APOCALYPSE
by Simone Matheson
Thank you so very much Sheniz Janmohamed, Kevin Matthew Wong, April Leung, Angela Sun and Merlin Simard for so wonderfully facilitating and coordinating this program. For offering excellent insight, and creating such an inspiring and positive space for growth and creation. I am so so grateful.
Congratulations Triza "teecup" Kuntai, Lesedi Keitsile, Tyler Bell, Shamiso "Miso" Chigwende, Emma Russell-Trione, Cypress, Amal, Gael Cohen, Jose Gonzalez Ferrio, and Jett Mozarowski-Lavallee. I cannot wait to see all that you create.