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The Earth Quakes Before Them

Posted on by Brooke

Local Big Ol’ University is back in session now—they start later than us at Adjacent Seminary—and the students, they are thick on the ground.

Like autumn leaves, you kick up showers of them when you walk.

Like gnats, you catch them on your uvula when you open your mouth.

Like worries, they fill your field of vision when you close your eyes.

As the prophet Joel anticipated…
Before them peoples are in anguish,
all faces grow pale.

Like warriors they charge,
like soldiers they scale the wall.

Each keeps to its own course,
they do not swerve from their paths.

They do not jostle one another,
each keeps to its own track;

They burst through the weapons
and are not halted.

They leap upon the city,
they run upon the walls;

They climb up into the houses,
they enter through the windows like a thief.

…they are climbing in the windows.