Poetic Prophecy

Dark Smoke on the Horizon
by Cameron Miller

A plume of black smoke
swirling elegantly
up from someplace too dark to see.
This is inside, I mean,
inside myself
down deep where nothing is clear.

Viscous and gritty, this wisp
whatever it is rising up inside,
feels almost like fear.
Strangely quiet instead
it evokes no jitters,
no panic,
nor flight.

There is a rumble.

A distant rumble,
maybe dread.
I look.
On the horizon
cleared of personal paraphernalia,
unlittered by ambition or hope
I see dark smoke rising,
the same as inside.

If I were Jeremiah
I would warn the king and temple,
but I am only me
and there is no one to warn
who will listen – who matters.

Picked from the carpet of bad apples beneath the tree
generals are being placed to reign
where once statesmen and women stood.

Shadowdancers lurk,
populating the stage where we see them
walking by, off camera,
standing slightly out of sight
whispering into the ear of the emperor-in-waiting.

We know this movie.
We have seen it before
in other places,
far away in miles and time,
now here
dawning with the sun.

Who can I tell?
Who can I shout the warning to?
They came for the Unionist
and they came for the Communists
and they came for the Jews
and when they came for us,
suddenly,
we were them.