It is the people who remember,
but when the people are gone
we won't have anyone to remember.
People go to a lot of trouble
to make things memorable.
I would like to make things enjoyable
by watching everyone,
and wondering what is going on.
Today I am as full of this day
as the air in this apartment
is full of particulate matter that sparkles off
the highway. A sliver of the moon
is still visible at midday.
Reading the news is unbearable,
but necessary. All exits are final
and all that.


About this poem
"Lately I've been thinking a lot about the end of the world, a subject I suspect many of us have been pondering of late. It was scary to realize as a kid that if the world ended there would be no one and nothing to remember. Since then, I've always tried to be in the world as much as humanly possible, even when I'm not."
-Todd Colby

About Todd Colby
Todd Colby is the author of "Splash State" (The Song Cave, 2014). He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Todd Colby. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate