SAINT JULIAN PRESS


Elizabeth Cohen ~ Poet

The End of the World
 
Is here. Tonight.
The sky, bruised blue-black, 
is grumbling.
 
The ground, parched and cracked 
in summer, is weeping mud,
overflowing ditches.
 
The arroyos are birthing 
new rivers, the Rio Grande 
is finally grand.
 
After Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon 
scarred the north, everyone, everywhere, 
prayed for deluge.
 
Tonight, in the downpour,
the toads have come out;
in the middle of Candelaria
 
Someone’s bloated orange tabby 
floats by. “You gotta’ be careful 
what you wish for,”
 
Quips everyone 
who has ever lived,
and they’re right.
 
Tonight brought it on:
selfish, brutal, apocalyptic water.
Hail. Gnats. 
 
Scurrying cockroaches.
In the bosque, hundred-year-old 
cottonwoods, down like blown wheat
 
Then, as suddenly as they opened,
the windows of the sky close,
a semitruck of tangerine clouds
 
drives up over the mountains,
followed by a hallelujah chorus
of rainbows.
 
Piled paint and splash light
stack three stories high,
pink and orange as a drunken rose bush.
 
Soon, the birds will return 
to the pollinator tree.
I’ll pick up an armful of sticks,
 
Build an altar to all things
ending, and all things 
beginning again.

Press Release
 
Poem One
Poem Two
Poem Three
Poem Four
​

Publication Date: November 15, 2023
Paperback:  $20.00
Publisher: ‎ Saint Julian Press, Inc.
Language: ‎ English
Paperback:  94 Pages
ISBN-13:  978-1-955194-39-6

Available Through – Bookshop.org ~  Ingram Content Group  ~  Amazon  ~  Barnes & Noble  ~  IndieBound
Fine Book Distributors & Retailers
 Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008  *  Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
 Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com