Thomas R. Bacon

Book Of Revelations
Quartet For The End Of Time
— Oliver Messiaen
 
Monarch butterflies float paper thin wings
thousands of miles to swarm tropical trees,
orange patterns like blossoms of sun.
Choreographed beauty, four cycles of life,
 
their generations then fly the winds back home.
Life: death, we too are born into the end of time;
the seventh trumpet sounds our sorrows 
of lost yesterdays, this hour, and forever tomorrows,
 
hoofbeats of four horsemen in our hearts;
and chance, or random chance, gravity 
binds our feet, mortality's heavy dance,
as we imagine the heaven of our ghosts.
 
Some see angel streets of gold — some 
an empty sleep without dreams.
 
 

Thomas R. Bacon lives in Sitka, Alaska, a small island community in the Tongass Forest. His work has appeared in San Pedro River Review, borrowed solace, Tidal Echoes, Cirque Journal, About Place Journal and The Tiger Moth Review.