Yesterday was perihelion: the day on which the Earth approaches closest to the Sun in its annual revolution around the Sun. I wonder if there’s a connection between perihelion and Epiphany/Three Kings — I’d argue it over a beer, and maybe two, but I’m not sure that it’s anything that deep.  I was thinking I’d write about Epiphany in this poem, but it turned out to be an anti-Apocalypse-meme inoculation attempt.  I also intend the ellipsis in the first line to last about a beat of a syllable, to make the metrical pattern work.

Elipsis … passes in a moment,
And Earth bends on its traditional curve:
Perihelion appears without comment,
collision course avoided with a swerve
that’s felt no different for ten million years —
Just the planet doing its usual
Thing, in utter indifference to our fears
roused by prophecy’s careless perusal:
Neither Maya’s ides nor Nostromo’s verse,
nor John’s Patmos nightmares of falling stars
really tell the truth. Worlds go well or worse
by other rules than calendars of ours.
Earth abides: no apocalypse shall claim
Our pale, poor wicks, nor prove such fevered dream.

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