The End of History, as Advertised

Did we just finish?
Is that why I'm lying here
on my kitchen floor, at midnight,
in the prime of my strength and youth
not carving cave-wall fire pits
in a dark sheltered place underground;
not camping with brothers-in-arms
on a European battlefield;
not laying in my prairie cabin
exhausted by the long day;
not subservient to a king,
not a slave to build the pyramids,
not moving mountains, raising city walls--
just laying here reading,
tired but justified because
"They don't really need me to be
very awake at work."
Despite my salary, my enviable station:
have Humans finished? Accomplished
all we set out to do?

Or put another way:
Am I--are we--is all this massive generation--
only the long nap that leads at end of life
to recollection,
to repose,
and hence to death?




May 2016