After Adam

145 a stillness over the face of the water. cranes remain motionless. the air settles, colonizes the bowed spines of pine, of cedar, of oak. the trees exhale, unheard in the wide silence of the world. for once there are no voices, humanity gone, as through a mirror, looking over his shoulder as he goes, & vanishing down the many paths to the world after men & the heavens fear neither skyscrapers nor zeppelins. his fires burn out. only the stars are radioactive, trillions—the bubble image of a thousand galaxies reflected & vanishing in the distance, through mirrors. who could look on that & not weep, not tear his clothes, his hair? creation, so much larger AFTER ADAM ERIC WEINSTEIN 146 than we’d feared. yes, then, better none remain, the garden of the earth dimming toward twilight, shadows over the deep, the partial darkness of water: & man, asleep, dreaming of air. ...