poem
Volume 35, Number 4

The Age of Rust

Yes, we knew about the terrors waiting for you,
the roasting of the planet like an unshelled nut
  the seas reclaiming our defenseless cities,

mutant gene packages battering down our bodies,
fields of blame and stunted shoots, sterile shadows.
  But in our lifetimes we faced monsters too,

hundreds of rounds a minute for city busting
or bursts that turned houses into shocked vapor,
  the famines and blights, squads after midnight,

to obliterate some front door or some family,
plus whirlwinds scouring a seashore clean.
  These we fought, and some we've even won, briefly.

It would be a mercy to forget all the dead,
this you will learn on your own before long.
  How many blunders and crimes are still to be made

that your offspring will ask and ask again about?
Damn us to our faces, for all the reasons
  but do not forget the lessons we bought with blood.


—Richard Magahiz