The End of Mythology

We didn’t know enough to be afraid
of ifs & buts & what some men do
at night out of boredom or under the
banners of their gods, but we knew
about clouds. How to re-story them,
draw new beasts for our new myths.
How to pinch out the rain between
thumb & forefinger & make things
green again. How to thunder. This
was between wars so our fathers for
the most part had no jobs but were
there, at least there in the sky, cirrus
or cumulus or more often that gray
featureless stratus suggesting storm.
We knew storm. We knew how the
inconsequential builds to fever pitch
before breaking down wire fences,
blowing the windows back inside,
rattling a house entire. & the peace
of its eye. We knew peace as one
part dream to ten parts waiting for it
to end. We didn’t know where our
yard ended & the sky began. How
one night soon the men would come
to pinch our fathers from the clouds.