As Rome fell, you and I were somewhere, then,
as chromosomes and genes, which found a way
to become what we became and rise again.

As Eve and Adam left the first garden
we started to become. And on the day
the Christ died, you and I were somewhere, then.

Through every war—yea, any time that men
and women have wreaked harm, or gone astray,
whatever we are, was, and rose again.

And here’s the hope: That we have withstood ten
thousand million losses, and still can say:
If the world ends, we shall be somewhere, then,

able to act, or not act. Too often,
it has been not, and there’s been hell to pay.
Yet whatever we were, managed to rise again!

Our issue—heirs, art, rage—shall be there when
the end to come, comes; therefore I inveigh:
That Fall shall find us somewhere, too—and then
whatever we become, must rise again.

James B. Nicola

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James B. Nicola’s poems have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; and Barrow Street. His seven full-length collections (2014-22) are Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page, Wind in the Cave, Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists, Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond, Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, and Turns & Twists. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. He has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice award, one Best of Net, one Rhysling, and ten Pushcart nominations—for which he feels stunned and grateful.