POEM: A Pale Horse Come and See

A prophetic poem

A Pale Horse Come and See
December 2022

The car in the driveway
barely running by the looks of it
parked askew
and scrawled with a cryptic message
in red spray paint
garish actually--
like lipstick on a mirror...
"A pale horse 
come and see!"
Yeah, maybe you know the reference.
I didn't.

I speculated as I walked...
Does this man have a horse to sell?
What is this advertising strategy?
(very crude)
Am I meant to follow him home
to come and see this mysterious beast?
And what is pale?
Is it ghostly white or barely brown?
Is it old and losing the vivid tint 
of a more youthful coat?
Even the invitation...Come and see...
How antiquated, really.
Like a carnival barker at the side show:
Come and see the painted lady! The gentle giant! 
This one swallows swords!
Much more exciting
than the variation: Come see for yourself.
Which always felt 
like some kind of threat.

The old Ford was parked there 
in the grey mist of dawn
in the driveway of an old farm house.
I'd never seen a horse there...
come of think of it.
Only lots of cats
and two barking dogs.

About a mile down the road
I thought to consult the internet
home of all knowledge 
(but little wisdom)
Library of Babel in my hand.
And quickly the reference came:
"And when he had opened the fourth seal,
I heard the fourth beast say, 'Come and see!'
And I looked, and behold a pale horse...
On him was Death,
and Hell followed with him..."
King James himself 
must have quaked at those lines
from John
Revelation 6: 1-17.

What a coincidence!
It was almost eerie...
I'd spent the night talking to a prophet 
about the coming of the messiah.
He was gathering his people
to receive this long awaited savior.
It was close...he said...
maybe 2023?
"Is it possible we are living in such times?" 
I asked over my steaming tea.
"Don't you feel it?" he replied.
I checked. I did.
Thousands of years of waiting
and now right on the cusp...
God was speaking into his ear
almost nightly now.
I asked, "How will we prepare the people?"
And he looked at me with wide eyes,
"Oh, there's no preparation. 
I guess, he's giving us fair warning...
At least those who will listen."

I was listening.
Not just to prophets of God
from the Bible,
painted on rusty Fords,
or in my living room,
but to my Mother:
GAIA.
Sitting on the soft earth,
looking out at the mountain...
What is your role? 
I can feel it in this weather, 
this teetering, teaming
on the edge of something stirring
climate chaos erupting
can't put the genie back
never ending always unfolding 
miracle of life
interweaving destinies
indestructible 
Peaceable Kingdom.

This stirring is what I'm holding 
in this restless female body;
in the wisdom of the womb;
In my indigenous ways of knowing.
Will She rise up 
to meet this God of the Sky?
How will She receive Him?
She is the one awakening--
Perhaps it's all for Her (not for us)
The coming of the Messiah,
The Cosmic Plan,
a new way of living here on Earth.
This will be quite a surprise to the Christians:
A return to the Garden of Eden
when Nature was known to humankind;
when Her might and glory was still felt;
before Eve began to name the parts;
and all of it began to fall apart.

I feel the earth rising in my body now
more alive than any one thing could ever be:
a cacophany; a collection of consciousness;
exponential in its entirety.
Larger than life!
Come and see! 
But shield your eyes, 
you have only 
as of yet
seen a similacrum, a poor reproduction
of what you will now see
in this carnival of wonders.
Diving down through man,
rising up in women,
the meeting of opposites
the end and the beginning.
There is no way to prepare
for such an event
Only fair warning
for those who are listening.

When he left
the prophet forgot his coat...
he was always forgetting something,
but not the big things.
I ran it out to him in the rain.
We hugged again
grateful for each other
and to live in these times.
I didn't feel scared,
only resigned 
to the inevitable
and kind of relieved 
at the prospect
of ending this exile.
I laid down and dreamt then 
of a horse as blue as Chagall's;
and a couple adoring the sun.
Balance restored.
The end of time
is too much to capture
in a work of art...
Perhaps, even 
in The Rapture.