Final Days
by R. D. Robbins

In crepuscular nights and blazing days
They climbed the mountain's perilous slope
And felt their way, grasping at shards
Of blackened rock and seared stone. 
Always thirsty, never drinking,
Always tired, never sleeping.

They looked below at desolate fields
And smoldering planes devoid of life,
At desiccated ocean floors
Gray parodies of lapis blue
The sand fused by the dying sun,
Featureless and mirror smooth.

And when they reached the mountain's top,
A scorched flat field where hot winds blew,
They looked into the cadmium sun,
Which filled the burning starless sky
With streamers of blue and alizarin light,
The very air a fiery plasma.

"They made us well, these human things,
Who ruled the world so long ago,"
She said, her silver skin aglow
With radioactive heat and light.

"Too well," he said. "We live to see
The end of time destroy it all."
His eyes, not made for tears, blinked once
And saw the sun collapse and stars appear.

R. D. Robbins lives in a loft in New York City, which affords considerable opportunity to view the eccentricities of the population. Unfortunately, there is little opportunity to see the stars in the night sky. His fiction and poetry have been published in, or are awaiting publication in, Virginia Adversaria, Algonquin Roundtable Review, Vermont Ink, Black Petals, Futures Magazine, The Nocturnal Lyric, Blood Moon Rising, Redsine, Yellow Bat Review, The Rockford Review, Hadrosaur Tales, Dark Angel Rising, Glyph and others. His website is www.daysofthegiants.com.