The End is Near

Blue Drone Band

(Lyrics by Seanchan Owen)

There was no way to tell

And it seemed like no one really cared.

That the end…was near.

So near that if you listened real closely

You could hear its breathing … its harsh breath

And the thumping of its leather-like heart:

The end … so … so … so … very near.

One would think that a coyote would call out in the middle of the night,

Warning all humanity … that its end was near.

And all the clocks in the world

Would strike twelve … in the middle of the day,

And say: It’s over … It’s over … It’s over.

All the animals would leave mankind

And scurry back … back to wildness.

And the sky would become empty of birds.

But no … not even the animals, the clocks, the coyotes knew

That the end … the end was so … so near.

Only Willie Johnson, a small boy in the middle of the playground,

Stopped … stopped playing with the ball he had found

That nobody else wanted to play with … he had found it.

But at that moment, the ball rolled away

As his eyes went up … and his breath stilled.

And he could hear it: the end.

All the other kids around him, happily playing,

Paid no attention to this privileged, intuitive, sensitive lad.

This amazing child, the one of all humanity

Who could tell the end was … so very near.

He was so special to be so aware of his own existence,

The existence of all mankind, of all life on the globe.

And yet, his life would be extinguished like everyone else’s.

It was as if the earth inhaled one time

And then exhaled for eternity.

Not a blinding flash but a sucking sound,

An up heaving, then a blasting … blasting out.

At what point did death occur?

At what point had life been?

Now, like the boy, it didn’t matter.

It was … the end.

And in the silence that followed

In the emptiness of space:

Nothing mattered.

Copyright 2007

BDB Music

Larkspur, CA