A Dream of Last Things

© 2002 Tracy Comer, music, and Stephen Elder, lyrics

[Key: A modal, Tracy plays with guitar in standard tuning and no capo]

I dreamed of life and death and Judgement Day
I'd died, ascending (so I thought) to stand
Before my Maker, who, with writ in hand
Said, "Sit, and let's review your resume."

Full of what I'd made and sung and done,
I sat, proud pinnacle of God's Created,
Glory-bound for sure, it seemed, and waited
for confirmation of the place I'd won.

Past the Pearly Gates with cherubim
Above were all God's creatures, great and small.
I searched, but nowhere did I see at all
Midst those that crawl or hop or fly or swim,
The gait of Man.

"I've had to rearrange,"
God said, "restructuring, you'd say.
I've downsized Heaven. I no longer want to pay
The cost of Man. T'was time to make a change.

"On its worst day, the lowest spider's aim
Surpasses all that man could hope to make.
No mess, no waste, pollution or mistake.
What human architect could make this claim?

Man's symphonies, though pretty, can't compare
To what the merest mockingbird brings forth,
To whalesong, wolfsong in the frozen North,
To sounds of all My creatures everywhere.

The other creatures stay within the scope
of their design. Their deeds are true to form.
They only take to live and breed, the norm
I'd set. Man alone has failed my hope

Behold my pristine Heaven one last time
And know that earth was once so clean and pure.
The casting out of Man will now ensure
Eternally, that Heaven stays sublime."

My application was denied. God's plan
did not include my kind, this dream made clear.
And I awoke, with Last Words ringing in my ear,
"No other creature fouls its nest but Man."

With shaken heart to be thus shown the worth
Of Man cast down, diminished, come to naught,
There came to me, unasked, this awful thought:
What if God decides to downsize earth?