In tenebris lux

This is the way the world ends 

Not with a bang but a whimper.

—T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

—John 1:5

A bad poem, the source of those much-quoted lines

Worlds after all end uncounted times

And bangs and whimpers serve to furnish rhymes

Impossible to tell what future a fate mimes

The higher one gets the faster that one climbs

Our allergies prevent you reading all the latest signs

No telling on what flesh a final human dines

(washed down doubtless with the choicest wines)

We live today in a kind of prequel

Whose burden is a heart that rends

Yes, this may be the way this world ends

But after just deserts, there’s a sequel . . .

Sunday, January 18, 2026