One afternoon when I was ten I came home to a silent house.

 

I dropped my bike at the open back door, lights on, dinner on the stove,

running from room to room, calling for my mom and dad and brothers,

panic and fear, the rapture has happened, left behind!

 

I’ve never felt so alone.

 

They told me the trumpet could sound any moment,

My Grandma sang about it every Sunday night,

Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon,

Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound.

I had seen those terrifying films at youth night,

those not ready left behind, the mark of the beast — lost forever!

As I sat crying on the porch step, mom appeared in front of me.

She had gone next door to borrow something.

 

I lived my childhood in fear — terror really.

It would come when we least expect it, like a thief in the night, in the blink of an eye,

splitting the eastern sky, no one knoweth the hour!

 

In my teenage years, preachers told us that Europe was forming a union,

adopting rainbow money, one world order, setting the stage for the anti-christ,

signs of the time, earthquakes, prophesies fulfilled, the end was nigh.

 

Conflict in the Middle East, Russia the biblical bear sweeping down from the North,

China the dragon from the East, Armageddon!

Fire will fall from the heavens, the moon will turn to blood, a bridle-deep river of blood.

 

In my twenties, they told us the end would come at the turn of the century,

the world system will crash, a charismatic leader will emerge to restore order.

But we weren’t quite sure if two thousand or two thousand one was the actual new millennium.

If it didn’t come on New Year’s Eve, 1999, we would know the next year was the right one.

 

As each sign came and went, new prophecies emerged, people still believed,

Still believe, these charlatans.

Now more than two decades into the new century, I don’t believe any of it anymore,

feel foolish that I ever did, angry that adults saddled me with all that fear and guilt.

 

Turns out we created the last days.

Turns out Yeats was right — things are falling apart and the center will not hold.

Turns out we have been the rough slouching beast loosing the blood-dimmed tide all along.

After two millennia of Christianity, every smart bomb is full of passionate intensity,

splitting the eastern skies above the desert sands, taking some and leaving others.

 

Every afternoon a ten-year-old boy comes home to a silent house.