The last man
In the last galaxy,
In the last solar system,
On the last planet,
On the last continent,
Stands upon the last mound of grass,
Looking up at the last blue sky.
His mind, the last one, wanders back to times past;
War, famine, pestilence, death,
In his time, and well before it,
The ages wages against each other,
Drowning the young,
Burning the old,
Leaving only dust and soggy red mud behind.
Future beyond redemption, past not cared for,
Those Warriors of Virtue
Declared not an atom for themselves or their enemy,
Yet battling year after year
For a vision long disappeared;
None would care, none would take a moment
To look for a better solution.
Now, of course, the final soldier
Yields to the enemy; an enemy long dead –
His eyes swell up with tears, the only water
Left on this last piece of rock, the last in the
Universe, which has long been dwindled down to
This one last place, this last battlefield, where
The war will be fought by and against a single soldier.
It will not be a war of arms, but of time,
And he can last only so long,
For what was envisioned several millennium ago
Is now a vicious reality;
The only regret this lonely soldier feels is
That none will learn from this tragic reality.
Not a soul.
October 6, 1997
