Last night, again, I dreamed <br />my children were back at home, <br />small boys huddled in their separate beds, <br />and I went from one to the other <br />listening to their breathing -- regular, <br />almost soundless -- until a white light <br />hardened against the bedroom wall, <br />the light of Los Angeles burning south <br />of here, going at last as we <br />knew it would. I didn't waken. <br />Instead the four of us went out <br />into the front yard and the false dawn <br />that rose over the Tehachipis and stood <br />in our bare feet on the wet lawn <br />as the world shook like a burning house. <br />Each human voice reached us <br />without sound, a warm breath on the cheek, <br />a dry kiss. <br /> Why am I so quiet? <br />This is the end of the world, I am dreaming <br />the end of the world, and I go from bed <br />to bed bowing to the small damp heads <br />of my sons in a bedroom that turns <br />slowly from darkness to fire. Everyone <br />else is gone, their last words <br />reach us in the language of light. <br />The great eucalyptus trees along the road <br />swim in the new wind pouring <br />like water over the mountains. Each day <br />this is what we waken to, a water <br />like wind bearing the voices of the world, <br />the generations of the unborn chanting <br />in the language of fire. This will be <br />tomorrow. Why am I so quiet?<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/waking-in-march/
