“Remaining Philosophical” by Jack Smithies

The power’s out. The antidote the books
alluded to proved ineffective, and
the animals ate each other or themselves
until by last night none were left.
The red sun sets upon the blackened heath –
night after night my dreams trouble me more
with deathly bestiaries, processions of
babbling lunatics and manticores.
What tools we could have used to shift the course
lie broken, rusting in desuetude.
The garden now long fallow, children visit no more.
We laugh, we are to blame, but only we,
who hold the secret, know we will survive,
remain quite philosophical about it all.